


Entangled Lives

by WorryinglyInnocent



Category: Lost
Genre: Bisexual Characters, Canon Divergence, Charlie survives, F/M, M/M, Multiple Relationships, Oceanic Six Claire, Polyamorous Characters, Polyamory, seasons 3 through 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-29
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-02 09:29:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 38,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16784248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WorryinglyInnocent/pseuds/WorryinglyInnocent
Summary: After the events ofPar Avion, Charlie explores his growing feelings towards Desmond and his unwavering feelings towards Claire, and together the three of them form a new relationship. Of course, there are still flashes of the future to deal with, and Penny to think about, and separations to be borne through time and distance, but they are determined to make it work, and to find themselves a happy ending.Canon divergent from S3Ep12Par Avion, although it still follows background canon plot events. Also partly inspired by a prompt I received a long time ago: "What if Charlie had survived, time-travelled, and been the musician who programmed the Looking Glass?"





	1. Part One

“Claire?”

Claire looked up from folding Aaron’s freshly washed nappies into a neat pile in the corner of the tent and glanced over at Charlie. He wasn’t looking at her, but instead staring down the beach towards their little pantry area. Claire could immediately tell what he was looking at. Desmond was sitting on the sand, eating a mango and looking comparatively peaceful, and Charlie’s attention was fixated on the other man.

Charlie’s attention had been fixated on Desmond quite a bit lately, which Claire thought was probably understandable considering everything that had happened over the last few days and his many brushes with death.

“Yes, Charlie?”

“Do you think Desmond fancies me?”

Of all of the questions that could have come out of the left field, Claire could honestly say that was not one she’d expected, but after so long on the island where weird had become commonplace, she took it in her stride.

“Perhaps,” she replied. “What’s brought that into your mind?”

“Well, at first I thought he fancied you,” Charlie continued, not that that really answered Claire’s question. “What with the constantly saving you thing. But then he turned out to be saving me, so I’m not so sure.”

“You know, he could just be saving your life, and or mine, because preventing someone’s death is a decent thing to do if you’re able to,” Claire pointed out. Charlie looked over at her, and he seemed so oddly crestfallen at her logic that she had to try and suppress a smile. “Or he could fancy you,” she conceded. Charlie scowled.

“You’re not taking this seriously,” he muttered, coming over and sitting beside her.

“It’s hard to take anything seriously when your life’s constantly in danger. But yes, it’s perfectly possible that he might fancy you. Maybe he fancies both of us.”

Charlie gave her an incredulous look then shrugged as he realised the logic of it and it sunk in deeper.

“Anyway, you didn’t answer my question,” Claire continued. “Why are you wondering about Desmond’s attractions all of a sudden?”

“No reason.” Charlie was rather too nonchalant in his answer. “I’m just, you know, curious. Not in that way,” he hastened to add. Claire just gave him a look. She was pretty sure that she could see exactly where Charlie’s train of thought was going, he just needed to see it himself.

“Well, if you’re that concerned about it, why don’t you ask him?”

“Claire!” She’d never seen Charlie look so scandalised about anything. “You can’t just ask someone if they fancy you!”

“Do you want me to ask him for you?” She knew she shouldn’t tease him like this, but whatever fun she could get on the island was hard to pass up.

“No! I just want to know, I don’t want to ask.”

“Well, I think you’re going to have to get used to disappointment in that case.” She waved to Desmond, who had since looked over in their direction and appeared to be watching Charlie’s expressions with just as much amusement as Claire was. He was too far away to hear their conversation, but he could probably tell that it was about him.

“This isn’t funny,” Charlie grumbled. He looked over at Aaron, who was watching them from his crib. “You understand, don’t you, Aaron?”

“He’s less than two months old, Charlie. All he understands is eating and sleeping and Mummy taking him for walks to see his extended family of island aunties and uncles. I’m being serious though. Just ask him. You managed to get him to tell you about the flashes, after all.”

“He was _very_ drunk.”

“Still, he opened up to you. Maybe now he knows that he can trust you, he won’t need plying with copious amounts of whisky.”

“Hmm.” Charlie fell into deep thought for a long time. “Maybe you’re right.”

Aaron began to fuss and fidget in his crib, and Claire could tell that he was getting hungry; her breasts were aching, and he was overdue a feed.

“Why don’t you go and talk to him now?” she suggested, getting Aaron settled in her lap and pulling her t-shirt up. He latched on greedily and Claire rocked him as he nursed. Charlie was back looking down the beach, but Desmond was staring out to sea again. “Are you sure that you’re not the one who fancies him?”

Charlie looked at her sharply. “I fancy you.”

“I thought we’d already established that it is possible to fancy more than one person at once. And hey, he’s a good-looking guy, I won’t deny that.”

“Maybe you’re the one that fancies him.” It was good to see Charlie’s cheeky grin back in place, and Claire just gave a shrug. Desmond was attractive, there was no doubt about that, and he was very different to Charlie. A little older, quite a bit more mature – although Charlie had definitely grown up in recent weeks – and a lot more intense. He wasn’t her usual type. She tended to go for the artistic types, the more individual ones, the ones who had a bit of a bad boy reputation. In short, the people more like Charlie.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the past few weeks, it’s that no-one gets anywhere by keeping something to themselves,” she said eventually. “So, if there’s something that you want to get off your chest, then I suggest that you do something about it, rather than letting it fester. Besides, we’re on the island of madness. We might all end up as a polar bear’s breakfast tomorrow, so if there’s anything you want to know, well, go and find out. You’ll feel better for it.”

“Will I? What if it just makes everything even more awkward?”

“Charlie, I am sure that the only thing that could make this situation any more awkward is if we keep talking about the possibility and probability of Desmond fancying you or me or vice versa, and you don’t actually ever do anything about it. It’s a big enough beach and Desmond does appear to have some semblance of a sense of humour, so if everything goes terribly wrong, then we can just stay at opposite ends of the beach for a while until it all blows over.”

Charlie nodded. “Yes. Right. Yes.”

Claire just shook her head in good-natured despair as she winded Aaron. It was evidently going to take a lot more time before this was resolved, but she wanted to see how things unfolded naturally before she took matters into her own hands.

X

Charlie was beginning to think that he’d made a mistake in confiding in Claire. Not because she hadn’t given him good advice or because he thought that she would be indiscreet about his current preoccupations, not at all, but more because she’d left him even more confused than he’d started out by forcing him to take a look at his own feelings.

Really, he’d been thinking and talking a lot about Desmond recently, and anyone, especially Claire, could be forgiven for thinking that there was something else at work. Charlie himself thought that he could be forgiven for thinking that there was something else at work. All he had to do now was work out whether there was or not.

He leaned back against Aaron’s empty crib, watching Claire’s progress down the beach with him as they said hello to all island aunties and uncles. He honestly had no idea. As Claire had said, Desmond was indeed good-looking. And he was very intense, and he was very different to Claire, and he was also incredibly determined to stop the worst from happening.

And what about Penny? Desmond’s determination to get back to her couldn’t be ignored, but at the same time, that chance seemed to be ever slimmer and there was obviously some part of him that had accepted that the island was his home now and that he would never see Penny again. Maybe that part of him was looking for someone new.

Charlie’s brow furrowed. He didn’t want to play second fiddle to Penny, although he was sure that she was a lovely woman. What was he doing thinking about that anyway?

“Charlie? Earth to Charlie? Anyone in there?”

He startled out of his daydream to find Hurley waving a hand in front of his face.

“Dude, I’ve been trying to get your attention for about ten minutes. What are you so lost in thought about?”

“Desmond,” Charlie blurted out.

“No, I’m Hurley. Unless you were thinking about Desmond. He hasn’t predicted your death again, has he?”

Charlie shook his head. “No. He hasn’t predicted my death for over a week now. I’m beginning to think that I might be out of the woods at last.”

“Well, that would be good.” Hurley sat down beside him. “So… Any other reason you were thinking about Desmond to the exclusion of literally everything else?”

Charlie didn’t respond. What could he respond with? I think Desmond fancies me? I think I fancy Desmond as well? Why does Desmond always insist on having so many buttons on his shirt undone, I mean honestly, and where did that thought come from? Why is Claire so calm about all this? Does Claire want a threesome with Desmond? Do I want a threesome with Desmond? Why is that a very appealing idea and why am I working out the logistics of it?

“Charlie? You’ve spaced out again, dude.”

Charlie remembered that he still hadn’t answered Hurley’s question and now couldn’t remember what it was. “Oh. Yes. Where were we?”

“Desmond.”

“Yes. Desmond.”

“Yeah, you seem to be thinking about him a lot.”

“Yeah… I mean, ever since I found out that he’s saved my life about three times in the last week, I’ve been wondering.”

He didn’t elaborate any further, but Hurley just nodded his understanding.

“You know, it might be worth actually talking to him about it.”

“That’s what Claire said.”

“So… Why don’t you?”

Charlie sighed. “It’s just not that easy. I’m a Brit, we don’t really do feelings.”

“Desmond’s a Brit too, unless Scotland declared independence since we’ve been on the island. So, you can both be awkward about your feelings together.”

“But what if something happens and the next time he foresees my demise, he doesn’t rescue me?” Charlie knew that it was a strange thing to be worried about, but this was the island of strange, and given how many times he’d already nearly died, it was a legitimate fear.

“Ok, Desmond’s a bit crazy from all that time on the island on his own without sleeping, but I don’t think that he’s that vindictive. Besides, Claire wouldn’t let him just let you die. Seriously, just talk to him.”

So, that was two different people telling him to talk to Desmond. Maybe that was going to be the solution after all.

Now he needed to work out what to say, which was going to be easier said than done and not something that he could really ask for advice in.

“Well, good luck.” Hurley patted his shoulder and got up to leave the tent, saying hi to Claire as she returned with Aaron.

“So, any ideas?” Claire asked once she’d put Aaron down for a nap.

“About what?”

“Your grand plan for discussing feelings with Desmond.”

“Oh yeah. That.” Charlie fiddled with his wristbands, trying to avoid a committed answer. If anyone was going to be able to help him in this matter, it ought to be Claire, who was being very understanding about the whole thing. He thought back over the couple of months that they’d known each other, trying to piece together how they’d got together in the first place. There had been a lot of ups and downs, that was true, but ultimately they’d just gravitated towards each other, just as Desmond was gravitating towards them both now. With the whole death visions thing aside, it was happening in as natural a way as they were ever going to get on Weird Island. The death visions couldn’t be denied, though, and they were a large part of his interactions with Desmond.

Charlie was never usually one for planning ahead. Before the flight, he’d always been too high to think very far into the future, but now that he was clean, he was seeing past the end of the day with a little more clarity. The thought of seeing the future brought him full circle back to Desmond.

“So, what happens after I talk to Desmond?” he asked. “Because I still want to be with you.”

Claire looked up from Aaron. “We’ll work it out when we get there,” she said. “We’re not exactly bound by social convention here. There are various ways that we can make it work. Besides, I’m nowhere near as possessive as you are.”

“I’m not possessive!”

Claire silenced him with a look. “Charlie, you are the most jealous person I know. Especially when it comes to me and Desmond. Remember how utterly insufferable you were when you thought that he was saving me and muscling in on you?”

“I was not insufferable!”

Another look from Claire. “And how you were with Locke whenever he came within about three metres of me and Aaron?”

Charlie didn’t like to remember those times.

“Well, ok, maybe I was jealous.”

“ _Maybe?”_

“Ok, I was jealous. But I mean, look at them. Locke’s blinking MacGyver who knows how to do everything! Desmond’s tall and fit and handsome and a really nice guy and basically all the things I’m not. Of course I was jealous, they’re bloody supermen next to me! I can’t compete!”

“No-one’s asking you to,” Claire pointed out simply, and Charlie took a moment to digest her words. “I’m certainly not. I’m with you, Charlie. I want to be with you. You need to have faith in that, and if Desmond ends up becoming a part of this thing that we have, then so be it. There’s something that the three of us share, something that’s bonded us together, you can’t deny that. We’ll make it work, but we can’t make it work if that first step is never taken.”

“I guess you’ve got a point there.”

Desmond had vanished from the beach. Perhaps he’d sensed that people were having awkward conversations about him and made himself scarce, or perhaps he was off protecting them all from some kind of future threat.

Tomorrow. He’d do it tomorrow, and then they’d go from there. At least he had Claire and Hurley’s support if nothing else.

X

In Charlie's defence, the fates didn't exactly conspire to make it easy for him to have a possibly difficult conversation about feelings, and he thought that he could be forgiven when 'tomorrow' still hadn’t come a week later. Claire had got sick, and obviously taking care of her and making sure that Aaron was taken care of whilst she couldn't do it took priority over everything.

Now that she was better, it made sense to get back to what he had been worrying about before she got sick, and that was what to do about Desmond, or rather, what to do about himself and Desmond.

The trouble was, it didn’t really feel like the sort of thing that one could just bring up in the middle of casual conversation. He needed to get Desmond alone somehow, away from the beach in a nice private spot in the jungle, but all the reasons Charlie could think of to get Desmond away from everyone else were hopelessly contrived and sounded ridiculous. There was no natural way of going about it, and he had been trying very hard to think of one.

“Hey.” Claire sat down next to him on the sand. They were a little way from their tent, close to the water’s edge, and there was no-one in the immediate vicinity to overhear them. “You’re looking like someone just told you that Christmas was cancelled forever. What’s up?”

Charlie sighed. A part of him was inordinately grateful for Claire’s support, but another part of him didn’t want to put the burden of all of this onto her. In any ordinary circumstances, it would probably have been something of a shock for any girl to find out her boyfriend was agonising over feelings for another guy, but Claire wasn’t just any girl, and these weren’t any ordinary circumstances, and she seemed quite happy with the whole situation.

“Where’s Aaron?” he asked, avoiding the subject. Claire rolled her eyes.

“You’re hedging,” she said sternly. “He’s with Rose and Bernard. I thought that whatever it was that had got you down warranted my undivided attention to sort out. So, I’m here trying to sort it out, because life’s too short for you to be sitting around here wondering about the what-ifs and not actually doing the things that might bring you lasting happiness.”

“I am happy,” Charlie protested. “I’m happy with you and Aaron.”

“I know, and I do believe that.” Claire’s voice was calm and level. Somehow she always managed to be the voice of reason and cut through all his bluster to get at the core of the issue, even if he had a tendency to resist her. “But right now, I think that there’s something praying on your mind and you’re never going to be completely content until you confront it. And I think we both know what it is that’s on your mind.”

“I don’t know,” Charlie said eventually. “I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know how I feel. It’s like there’s something there that’s undefined, a seed that’s been planted but hasn’t sprouted yet, if you know what I mean. It’s got that potential to grow if it’s nurtured, but it’s not, it won’t grow, it’ll just stay there, dormant.”

“So, what you need to know is whether or not it can be nurtured. That makes sense. The beginning is already set in place and there’s nothing that anyone can do about that, but if nothing happens, then that’s ok and if something does happen, then that’s great. You just need to know if anything’s going to happen or not.”

Charlie nodded. “I think that sums it up, yeah. But what about you?”

“I’m with you whatever happens.” Claire leaned in and kissed his cheek. “The thing is, Charlie, only you and Desmond can work out if anything’s going to happen. That’s a conversation that the two of you have to have. It won’t work if anyone else does it for you, because only you know your own feelings and how serious they are.”

“Yeah, that’s the problem. I know I need to have that conversation. Everyone keeps telling me that I need to have that conversation. I just don’t know how to go about actually having it. I can't exactly go over there and say 'hello Desmond, can I have a private conversation with you please?'"

"Why not?" Claire asked. "That seems like the most sensible way to start a private conversation with him."

"I know, I know, but it feels wrong somehow. It feels like it's making it into something way more serious than it is. Except it is serious. I don't want him to think that it's not serious, but I don't want him to think that it's something terrible. It's not something terrible, is it?"

"No, Charlie, it's not something terrible. I know that most people's minds do automatically assume the worst all the time, and yours is no exception. But I promise you that the best and most direct way to get this conversation going is just to ask if you can have a chat with him in private. It doesn't have to sound incredibly formal and scary. Honestly, Charlie, you're only going to keep stewing away at this wondering what on earth to do with yourself, so I think that the best thing to do would be to just get on with it. I can go over and ask him to talk to you on your behalf if you would like, but we're not in school anymore."

Charlie laughed. "Yeah, I suppose you're right. Right now, though, the idea of passing messages along is actually quite appealing."

"I know that it's daunting, but you really don't have anything to worry about. What's the worst that could happen? Desmond could say no, he's not interested in you or in having a relationship with you. If that's the case, then you haven't really lost anything, have you? You'll still have me and Aaron, no matter what happens. You have a lot to gain from being brave and taking this step, Charlie, and you don't have anything to lose."

"Except my dignity."

"You won't lose your dignity. I may not have known Desmond for long, but I do know that whatever his feelings and persuasions might be, he does care about you, and he would never humiliate you like that."

Deep down, Charlie knew that Claire was right. He was just going to have to get off his arse and do something, or else it would never get done. He knew that Desmond would never make the first move, because Claire was there. It was one thing to speak to Desmond, who was nominally single depending on how one viewed his relationship with Penny, and quite another thing for Desmond to speak to Charlie, who was very definitely already in a committed relationship. Any overtures had to come from Charlie himself. He was going to have to be the brave one and just get on with it already. 

"All right," he said, getting to his feet and brushing the sand from his jeans. "All right, I'm going to do it."

"Right now?"

"Right now. If I don't do it now, I'll never do it."

Claire smiled. "You go for it. If you need any more moral support, you know where to find me. It'll all be fine, I promise you."

Charlie nodded, wishing that he felt as confident as Claire evidently was. He knew where to find her, but at the same time, he had no idea where to find Desmond. Where had he gone to? Just his luck; he'd made up his mind that this was the moment and the object of his mission vanished into the ether. 

Finally, he spotted Desmond talking to Hurley over by the ping-pong table, and he set off with a renewed sense of purpose, marching across the sand with as much dignity as anyone marching across sand could ever muster. He stopped a little way short of the ping-pong table; he didn't want to interrupt the conversation because even though he thought that what he wanted to say was very important, and it was indeed very important to him, it wasn't so important that it warranted rudeness. Claire wouldn't have approved, and he really did want Claire to approve of him. 

Hurley and Desmond's conversation came to a natural close, and Charlie took a deep breath. It was now or never. Well, not exactly now or never, there would be plenty more opportunities to try and speak to Desmond in the future, but he'd decided that he was damn well going to do this now. 

"Hi Charlie. What can I do for you, brother?

"Can we, erm, talk?" Charlie asked, immediately cursing himself. Smooth, Charlie. Very smooth. 

"Of course. I’ll see you later, Hurley."

"Sure. See you around, Charlie."

There was a little smile on Hurley's face as they turned away from him and walked away towards the tree line. He knew what the conversation was going to be about, but he had enough sense to keep it to himself, which Charlie was grateful for. Although Hurley wasn't the best at keeping secrets, this one he had been discreet about. Possibly because it wasn't directly related to their immediate survival on the island and was of a far more private and personal nature. If no-one was going to be put in danger as a result of whatever secret he had to keep, then Hurley was much more likely to succeed in keeping it to himself as it didn't go against his natural goodness. Charlie wondered whether Hurley and Claire were going to be making bets together on what the outcome of the conversation would be. He wasn't sure how he felt about the notion, and then he decided that it was ridiculous to get upset about it when there were far more pressing concerns at hand. Namely the fact that the conversation that he'd been building up to for about a week now was about to happen, and he had no idea what he was going to say. 

"So, what did you want to talk about?" Desmond asked. They were a little way into the jungle now. The beach was still visible so there was no chance of them getting lost in the undergrowth and someone having to send out a search party, but they wouldn't be overlooked or overheard from the camp. It was the perfect spot, and Charlie sat down on a tree stump, then decided that it would be better to stand and jumped up again as if ants had bitten him. Desmond just raised an eyebrow, but he said nothing.

"I wanted to talk about me," Charlie began. "Well, no, that sounded bad. I wanted to talk about you and me. And... Oh balls, this isn't going at all how I thought it would. I don't know how I thought it would go, but it wasn't like this."

"Forgive me for being confused, Charlie, but what are you going on about? I can take a guess if it would help you out, but..."

"I just want to know where I stand," Charlie said, the words coming out very quickly before he could regain any control over them or chicken out of saying them at all. "Because right now, I think there's something there and I want to know whether I should ignore it or actually do anything about it because I don't know how you feel, and if you don't feel that way then that's fine, we can pretend that this conversation never happened, and, actually, can we already pretend that this conversation isn't happening because I'm making a right pig's ear of it."

"Stop for breath, brother."

Charlie took the advice and took a deep breath. Honesty was the best policy. Claire had told him that. She didn't want him keeping anything from her, and she hated it when he hedged and beat about the bush. If he was going to get anywhere, then he needed to be honest.

"Desmond, I am attracted to you and I want to know if you feel the same way, because if you do then maybe something can come of it, and if you don't, then, at least I know."

Desmond was silent for a long time, but he didn't look away from Charlie's face. There was something in his expression, something searching and inquisitive and wary all in one, as if he was searching for the trick behind Charlie's words. There was no disgust, no misunderstanding, no pity that Charlie had unfortunately got the wrong end of the stick. There was instead just cautious optimism. 

"I'm not quite sure what to say, to be honest, Charlie," he said eventually. "I didn't want to say anything because of Claire."

"I guessed that would be what was holding you back, if anything was holding you back. I mean, it's really bloody difficult to tell if someone fancies you, you know?"

Desmond laughed, but it was not at Charlie himself, more just the situation that they'd found themselves in. "I know. I couldn't exactly come over whilst you were happy with Claire and ask about the whole situation. I was quite happy just to leave it alone, but now we're here, and this is happening, and we're having this conversation."

"So… I'm going to take that as a yes."

"Yes, Charlie. I do feel the same way."

"Good." 

The relief that he felt was indescribable, as if a great weight had suddenly been lifted off him, and Charlie realised that he would have felt that same relief no matter what the answer might have been. It was the not knowing that had been sending him around in circles with fears and what ifs. 

"So, what are we going to do now?" Desmond asked. 

Charlie hadn't planned anything this far in advance. Now that he knew where he stood, he had no idea where to go from there. Logic told him that he should probably act on the information he'd just been given. He could act on his feelings now that he knew they were reciprocated. 

"We could do something about the fact that we've been eyeing each other up from opposite ends of the beach for I'm not entirely sure how long," he suggested. 

The corner of Desmond's mouth quirked up in a smile. "All right.” 

Charlie hadn't realised until that very moment just how tall Desmond was, and just how short he was in comparison, possibly because Claire only measured about five foot-and-a-bit and she'd always made him feel rather tall. Still, there was nothing to be gained from ruminating on height differences.

"Oh, what the heck," he said, and he leaned in, grabbing Desmond's shoulders and kissing him. It wasn't exactly the most elegant of moves, but it definitely got the point across. 

"Well," Desmond said once they broke apart. "That was certainly something. May I return the favour?"

Charlie nodded vigorously. "Please do."

Kissing Desmond was very different to kissing Claire. There was his beard to contend with for a start. He wasn’t the first man that Charlie had kissed in his time, but the others had mostly been under the influence of either drink or other more illicit substances, and the memories were somewhat hazy.

There was a desperation in Desmond when he kissed, and all things considered, Charlie could understand why that might be.

“All right, don’t get carried away too soon,” he joked.

Desmond laughed. “Sorry. Overenthusiastic there.” He paused, gazing over at the beach. “What about Claire? I know that you two are together, at least, I always thought that you were, and as happy as I am to know that you feel the way you feel, I don’t want to come between you two, it wouldn’t be fair on her.”

“Well it was Claire who encouraged me to get my act together and actually talk to you instead of annoying her with what-ifs, so I think she’s happy to share. Besides, I think she likes you too.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. She’s already told me that you’re handsome.”

Desmond laughed again. It was a wonderful sound, and not one that they’d heard all that often in the time since he’d been with their camp. Perhaps now they would have the chance to hear it more frequently.

“Do you like her?” Charlie asked. “In that way, I mean. If this comes to anything, would you be all right with Claire as a part of this?” It felt strange to be asking the question since it was Claire who had set the ball rolling and put this relationship in motion; the idea of leaving her out of it seemed wrong somehow. “I mean, I know that you like girls, there’s Penny after all… Actually, maybe that’s a good reason not to get involved… But when you kept saving her I did think that you fancied her a bit too, you know.”

Desmond scoffed. “Believe me, Charlie, I think the entire camp knows that you thought I fancied Claire a bit.”

“Yes, yes all right. I’m trying to be better, I honestly am. It’s just that you’re a hard act to live up to. You know, all tanned and muscly and beardy.”

Desmond looked like he was trying very hard not to laugh, and Charlie wished that he had a better way with words that weren’t set to music. Maybe if he just wrote songs about everything, he’d be able to express himself slightly better.

“I’m flattered you think of me like that, Charlie,” Desmond said eventually. “Claire’s sweet and lovely, and she is beautiful. I suppose I’ve never really thought of her in that way before.”

"But you'd be all right with it?" Charlie hedged. As happy as he was that this had all finally sorted itself out to a happy conclusion in terms of him and Desmond both being on the same page regarding their feelings for each other, Claire was a make or break point in the whole affair. Charlie would stay with Claire, his first instinct would always be towards her, just as Desmond's first instinct would always be towards Penny. If there was going to be any awkwardness on anyone's part, then it would be best to get it out of the way now, before anything could actually be done, and anything could be regretted. 

"If Claire's happy with it, then I am too," Desmond said. "Considering everything else that's happened to us whilst we've been here, I think that we should be able to make this work. It'll be a piece of cake in comparison."

"I'm glad that you think that, because I really don't know how it's going to work from here on. To be honest, I didn't really have any kind of a plan past having this conversation. It was one of those things where so much stuff could go wrong that you don't want to start thinking about all the possible outcomes because you'll be here all day."

"Maybe we should go and tell Claire the good news?" Desmond suggested. There was a little smile on his face and Charlie got the impression that had they not just had a heartfelt conversation and had they not been friends, then Desmond would have been laughing at him, but he knew that nothing malicious was meant in it. 

"Yeah, that would probably be a good idea. She's probably wondering where we've got to, or if some strange forest creature's come and attacked us and you've had to save my backside again."

"You're honestly not that bad, Charlie. It just feels that way because you're the only one I ever see in danger. I'm sure that there are worse people out there. Well, there was Brother Joseph at the abbey, he was in and out of the infirmary every week with something wrong with him. He had the uncanny ability to trip over his own feet, usually on hard surfaces. He had a permanently bloody nose, and sometimes the sight of him could make keeping a vow of silence very difficult."

"You were a monk?"

"Yes. I was fired."

"You were fired from being a monk? How?"

"Drunk and disorderly."

"But you were a monk!"

"I was a drunk and disorderly monk, and now I am an ex-monk."

They continued to walk through the trees in companionable silence, and Charlie pondered this new information. 

"So, I guess all the vow of chastity stuff doesn't apply now that you've been fired." He really hadn't meant to sound so hopeful at the prospect, but there they were.

"I never got to the making solemn vows stage. I wasn't a very good monk. But you are correct, had I taken it, it would no longer apply."

"Right." Charlie fell to thinking again. "I suppose that explains why you call everyone brother."

Desmond laughed. "One habit that I couldn't get out of."

"I think it suits you, though. One of those little quirks, you know."

"Thanks. Being a monk definitely didn't suit me."

"I can't imagine you in one of those grey dresses."

"They're called cassocks. They're not dresses."

Charlie rolled his eyes. "Whatever. I still can't imagine you wearing one."

"Thankfully there are no pictures of that point in my life. Or if there were, they've been lost to time." 

Their conversation had taken them back to the beach, and as they approached Charlie and Claire's tent, Charlie could see that Claire and Aaron were back inside it. He ducked in, waving for Desmond to follow him. 

"So..." Claire began, with that cheeky little smile on her face, the one that said she was very pleased with herself but too modest to announce the fact. "I take it from the Cheshire Cat grin on your face that everything went well."

Charlie nodded. "I think it went well, yes. Do you think it went well, Desmond?”

"I'm assuming it went well."

Claire let out a mock sigh of relief. "Thank God for that. Honestly, Desmond, I've been telling him that he needs to talk to you about this whole thing for months."

"It's not been months! It's been about three weeks, tops."

"It feels like months."

"Well, that's because your perception of time is wonky."

"Of course it is. It has nothing to do with me listening to you constantly asking if I think Desmond fancies you. Which I did."

"And I do," Desmond admitted. "Claire... are you sure that you're all right with this? I mean, I really don't want to be a third wheel here. Charlie said it would all be fine."

Claire reached across and patted his hand. "You're a very welcome third wheel, Desmond. As I've been telling Charlie for these past few days whilst he's been agonising, it's perfectly possible to have feelings for more than one person at once, and none of those invalidate any of the others. I think that this way, we can all be happy. We all get what we want. True, there's going to be an element of sharing involved, and I'm not saying that it's going to be plain sailing all the time. But I wouldn't have encouraged Charlie to go ahead with this all if I didn't think that we could make it work."

"Well, in that case, I look forward to making it work."

"I'm going to set one ground rule before we begin this thing, though," Claire said, and her tone of voice brokered no arguments. "Obviously there are many more boundaries that are going to have to be discussed and set up, but there's one thing that needs to be established if we're going to trust each other in this relationship, and it goes for all three of us. If we're going to make this work then there can't be any secrets. Look at what happened the last time that secrets were being kept. All this palaver with the future flashes became so much easier when it was all out in the open. There needs to be trust. How else are we going to help each other and make this into the best we can?"

Charlie nodded his agreement. "No secrets."

"No secrets," Desmond echoed. 

Claire beamed, and kissed each of them on the cheek. 

"I'm very proud of you," she whispered to Charlie, and for the first time in a long time, Charlie felt very proud of himself as well, for biting that bullet and just going for it. Despite his fears of humiliation and ridicule and a whole host of other equally unpleasant things, taking a chance had paid off, and now there was something bright in the future ahead for them. They could, and would, make it work. 


	2. Part Two

Things seemed to have happened very quickly ever since that conversation with Charlie that had finally brought everything out into the open. Maybe it was because they’d spent so long unconsciously avoiding the subject that they were making up for lost time now, or maybe it was simply that Desmond’s perspective of time was still skewed after three years of hatch monotony. Either way, Claire and Charlie had welcomed him into their tent on a practically semi-permanent basis, and everything seemed to be progressing quite nicely.

Sitting on the beach helping Jin to gut and clean the latest batch of fish, Desmond fell to thinking. It was in these moments with nothing to do, when he wasn’t having any strange flashes, that he had always felt the most alone. It hadn’t really bothered him too much to start with. He was used to being alone; he’d spent far too much time trying to get away from people or trying to get back to people. He didn’t really enjoy the solitude though. Even when he come out of the hatch and set up camp on the beach with the rest of the Oceanic survivors, there was still a sense of isolation. He was an outsider, even if he wasn’t one of the mysterious Others, and after everything that had happened, he could understand their initial reluctance to trust.

Now though, that had changed. He no longer felt the same sense of isolation and loneliness, and he had Charlie to thank for that.

Not for the first time since this venture had begun, Desmond found himself thinking of Penny. He still missed her, so much that it was an ache, but it was not quite so crippling a feeling as it had been before, when he had been sure that she was the only person in the entire bloody world who cared about him. Now he knew that wasn’t true.

He’d been wary, when those first little feelings had begun to stir in the back of his mind and he’d recognised them for what they were. He’d wondered if he’d just been missing Penny so much that he was just desperately searching for comfort and companionship wherever he could find it. Time had shown the feelings to be genuine and not only that, reciprocated.

This felt right. When he thought of Penny, he didn’t feel any kind of guilt or shame. She would understand – well, as much as she could understand having never been to Hell Island. She wouldn’t chastise him for this or think any less of him for it. Of course, things might get complicated if he ever did manage to get off the island, but that was a bridge that they could cross if and when they came to it. They could make it work out with whatever means they had. The future was still so nebulous, whatever flashes and flickers of it he might be seeing, and it made no sense to work off a fear of what might happen in the future anymore. There might never be a future. He’d pretty much given up all hope of them ever leaving the island, and it made no sense for them to deny themselves something that they both wanted indefinitely because of a vague what-if.

It took Desmond a few moments to realise that Jin was speaking to him.

“Sorry, didn’t catch that, brother.”

Jin just grinned. “You. Charlie. Claire.”

“Yes.”

“You together?”

“Yes.”

Jin considered this for a moment, then just shrugged and went back to repairing his nets. Desmond had to give a snort of laughter. As long as everyone on the beach was as calmly accepting of the situation as Jin was, then they shouldn’t have any trouble. They were all living in strange times after all. Polyamory was hardly the weirdest thing that had happened to them whilst they’d been on the island. In fact, it might solve some more of their dramas. He looked over his shoulder at Jack, Kate, and Sawyer further down the beach. That was definitely an interesting dynamic.

“Hi Desmond.” Sun had come over. “How are things?” By her little glance down the beach at Claire, it was clear what she was actually asking.

“Fairly well, thanks. Everything’s still a bit new at the moment, you know. But it’s going well.”

“I’m glad. You deserve to be happy. We all do, after everything that’s happened.”

That was what it came down to in the end, Desmond thought. Happiness. Right here, right now, this thing with Charlie and Claire was what made him happy. Ultimately, Desmond had had enough of not being happy. If he was going to spend the rest of his days on this godforsaken island, then he wasn’t going to be miserable for that time.

Sun and Jin were talking in quiet Korean nearby, their own lives and their own problems taking precedence over the latest beach intrigue. Desmond put down his knife for a moment, closing his eyes and letting the fresh sea breeze blow away the smell of fish guts.

That was his first mistake. The second was realising that he was having another flash and deciding to see where it went, not that he really had a lot of choice in the matter.

Storm, jungle, flashing light, another pallet drop? No. Just a person, a parachutist.

Penny. Why would it be Penny? Penny had never parachuted out of anything in her life before. Still, no matter what the rationale might be, that was the one overarching thought going through his head. _With enough money you can find anyone anywhere._ Penny.

Jungle. Jin, Hurley, Charlie. Desmond felt bile rising in the back of his throat. Just when he thought he was finally having a flash that didn’t foresee Charlie’s imminent demise, here it was again, one of Rousseau’s traps.

But Penny. The parachutist.

He opened his eyes. The vision was gone, as quickly and suddenly as it had started. Desmond groaned and sank his head between his knees.

“Desmond?” Sun’s voice was alarmed. “Are you all right?”

He nodded mutely, what else could he do?

“We should probably get under cover,” Sun continued. “It looks like a storm’s coming.”

Of course it was, because fate couldn’t let him have a nice two-week buffer in which he could work out what the hell to do with his new foreknowledge. He growled with frustration, getting to his feet and helping Sun and Jin gather up all the fish. He had to follow the vision; he had to see where it led. If there was the slightest possibility of reuniting with Penny, then he had to take it.

But Charlie… How much would the future alter if Charlie stayed behind? How much would it alter if Desmond was able to save him at the last minute? Reuniting with Penny was not worth Charlie’s life. Why did he keep thinking that it was Penny, or at least that this was his key to getting back to her?

Charlie and Claire ducked under the tarp just as the first spots of rain began to fall, and Desmond just kept turning over the options in his mind. He couldn’t ignore what he’d seen, but at the same time…

He’d find a way. He had to. As soon as the storm was over, it would be time to gather the troops and set off to find someone who was hopefully a parachutist and hopefully still alive.

X

Dozing happily in that semi-sleep, semi-waking state that didn't really lend itself to anything other than thoughts that would only be forgotten in the morning, Claire found herself musing on everything that had happened over the past couple of weeks. Once Charlie and Desmond had finally bitten the bullet and had their talk, things had been going on remarkably smoothly. Of course, there were a hell of a lot of other things happening on the beach that weren't going quite as smoothly. Juliet's arrival was still ruffling feathers and Jack's implicit trust in her was ruffling even more. Naomi's arrival had made things even more complicated, and for the first couple of days after Desmond and the others had brought her back to the beach, Claire had wondered what it would mean for the fledgling relationship that had been going along so nicely before this interruption. Naomi was Desmond's ticket back to Penny and a life away from the island - a life away from her and Charlie. She'd been on tenterhooks for what felt like forever, just watching the interactions going on between Desmond, Charlie, and Naomi. 

She knew that Penny was the most important person in Desmond's life; she'd never held any illusions about that. She was more concerned about Charlie and what he was feeling, because she knew how jealous Charlie could get, and she knew that he'd been worried in the first place, before this whole thing had even started, that he was just a replacement for Penny whilst Desmond couldn't be with the actual love of his life. As it was, she needn't have worried. Everything seemed to be on an even keel, and their relationship seemed to be as strong as it had been before this intervention. It gave her hope that whatever might happen after they got off the island - if they managed to get off the island - that things were going to be all right, and that this whatever it was between the three of them, still new and undefined, would not be forgotten about and left to fall by the wayside. The feelings that they were all experiencing now did actually mean something, and she was glad of that. Their relationships with each other within this triangle might not always mean the same things to everyone, but they meant something to all of them, and that was enough for Claire. Strange as it seemed, it gave her hope for herself, as well as for Desmond and Charlie. It was all too easy to think that within the island, things were different, and as soon as they reached the outside world again, everything would go back to the way it had been before. That was something that Claire desperately did not want to happen. 

She wondered what would happen now that Naomi had brought news of a possible rescue. Claire really didn't want to get her hopes up, but at the same time, the prospect of going home, and raising Aaron in a much less life-threatening environment (Charlie's jokes about all Australian nature wanting to kill its inhabitants aside), was too good to ignore. She would leave it in the others' hands for now. She would give her two cents' worth if she was asked, but they seemed content to fight it out among themselves whilst everyone else looked on. She knew that Jack and the rest of them had everyone's best interests at heart, although there might be some debate as to what exactly the best interests were. In the meantime, she'd take a leaf out of Rose and Bernard's book and stay as far away from the drama as possible. 

Claire wasn’t exactly sure what woke her fully, but as soon as she opened her eyes and peered through the gloom over Charlie’s shoulder, she realised. The tent flap was open and shivering in the cool breeze, making Claire shiver along with it. She and Charlie were alone inside.

“Desmond?”

Claire carefully moved Charlie’s arm from around her waist and sat up, rummaging around for her clothes and pulling them on. Charlie was still fast asleep with a blissed-out expression on his face, completely unaware of whatever had disturbed Desmond and by proxy Claire.

She checked that Aaron was still sleeping soundly in his crib and left the tent, weighing down the flap again to keep Charlie and Aaron snug inside.

“Desmond?”

He was sitting on the sand not too far away, just wearing his jeans, his head between his knees. Claire felt a trickle of ice run down her spine. Everyone had nightmares but considering what Desmond had already seen in his time, somehow his nightmares made her more afraid than her own did. She took a deep breath, determined to get to the bottom of it all. Something that made him run from the tent was bad, but with any luck, they would be able to mitigate it. They had managed to mitigate everything else so far. This would be no different.

“Des?” Claire reached out and touched his shoulder; he was dripping with sweat. “Desmond, tell me. Did you have another flash? What did you see?”

He shook his head and Claire sighed, settling herself on the sand beside him.

“Desmond, we all know that keeping it to yourself doesn’t help anyone, least of all me and Charlie. No more secrets. That’s what we agreed when we started this. If we’re going to make it work then we have to be open with each other. What did you see, Des? What’s so awful that it can’t be shared?”

Desmond took a deep breath and finally looked at her, running a hand through his hair.

“I had another flash,” he began. Claire had already surmised as much, but she let him speak. “It was like all the others. Charlie died. Again. That’s the fifth time, Claire, I don’t know how long we can keep this up. Something tells me that this is fate and the more we cheat it, the harder it’s going to try and put things back on track.”

“There’s no such thing as fate,” Claire said firmly. She’d believed in fate once upon a time, but after Rousseau had taken Aaron from her, she’d lost some of her faith in the great beyond. _There’s no such thing as fate. Nothing’s punishing us._

“I wish I could say I felt the same,” Desmond murmured, and Claire nudged his knee with hers.

“What’s so terrible about this vision, then?” she pressed. “Why now? Why is it this one that makes you think that perhaps Charlie’s eventual death is inevitable?”

There was silence for a long time, and Claire could see the anguish in Desmond’s face. She wondered if he would be feeling so conflicted about the whole thing if she and Charlie hadn’t welcomed him into their relationship and if those feelings had never been made clear. If he thought that she and Charlie were perfectly happy together just the two of them and that his own muddled feelings would never be requited.

“Because I don’t know whether I should try to prevent this one,” he said quietly. “It wasn’t just his death that I saw. Like last time, when we found Naomi. It’s a chain of events, and I don’t know whether interfering would change that.”

Claire felt her stomach begin to churn at the thought. Before, Desmond’s visions and flashes had always been fairly straight forward: he had seen Charlie die and he had done whatever he had to in order to prevent that happening. Now, things were getting more complicated, and there were other factors playing in.

“What could be so important that it would be worth risking Charlie’s life to make it come to pass?” she asked.

Desmond gave her a sad little smile before he replied in the simplest way possible, his voice soft and reverent.

“You, Claire.”

Claire was taken aback by the answer, not sure what she should be thinking in response to it.

“Me?”

“You and Aaron getting to safety. Getting off the island.”

Claire’s heart was beating painfully in her mouth. God, there was nothing that she wanted more than to get off the island and get back to normality and try to live a regular life. To get off the island would be a dream come true, but sacrificing Charlie to be able to do it? That was more like a nightmare.

She took a few minutes to let it all sink in, trying to come to terms with the momentous revelation that had just been handed to her.

“Tell me everything,” she said eventually. “Start at the beginning and end at the end. Just tell it to me straight.”

“Charlie’s in a room,” Desmond began. “It’s underwater, out in the ocean.”

“An underwater room?”

“Yeah, don’t ask me how, but it’s what I saw. He’s in an underwater room and he’s at a computer, typing in some kind of code. There’s a flashing light above him. He types in this code and flips a switch, and the light goes out. Then the room floods and he drowns.”

Claire’s churning stomach was showing no signs of abating, so she just took a deep breath through it and nodded, indicating for Desmond to continue.

“Go on. Where do Aaron and I come into it? And what about you?”

Desmond shook his head. “I don’t really see myself in the visions,” he said. “After Charlie drowned, though, I saw you. You and Aaron were on a helicopter and you were headed away from the island.”

“A helicopter? Where did that come from?”

Desmond shrugged. “I have no idea. Probably the same one Naomi came out of. But it’s what I saw, Claire. If you’ve got the chance to get Aaron off the island, then you need to take it.”

“And I will,” Claire said firmly. “But I’m not going to lose Charlie or you in order to do it. I care way too much about both of you to let that happen. No-one’s going to be sacrificing themselves or anyone else for me. Not on my watch. We’ll find a way to prevent this from coming to pass. You’ve prevented all the others. Desmond, I’ll stay here on this island for as long as I have to as long as Aaron, Charlie and you are all safe and sound with me.”

“Oh Claire.” Desmond sighed, but it was not the same despairing sound that it had been before. There was peace in it, as if she’d managed to pull him back from the brink and into acceptance with tenacity alone. “You’re remarkable.”

“Indeed I am.” She preened for a moment and then broke down into giggles. “Come on, let’s get back to the tent. Aaron will be waking up for a feed soon and Charlie’s going to wonder what we’re getting up to out here on the beach on our own.”

She got to her feet and held out a hand to help Desmond up, but being so much taller and heavier he simply pulled her back down onto the sand, rolling his eyes and then hauling her up with him.

“You know, I thought that Charlie was getting better at sharing,” he said.

“Oh yes, he’s definitely getting better, but I don’t think it’s ever going to be his strong point.” They made their way back to the tent hand in hand; Charlie and Aaron were both still exactly where Claire had left them earlier although Aaron was beginning to fuss and stir in his crib.

She picked him up carefully as Desmond lay back down beside Charlie, propping himself up on one elbow as if to keep watch over them all.

Claire sat down to nurse, grabbing her water bottle and taking a long glug before Aaron woke up fully, and she looked over at the two men. She supposed that she was going to have to accept that one day, there would come a time when Desmond wouldn’t be around to save Charlie, or when Charlie could not, for whatever reason, be saved. Perhaps this was that time, but she didn’t think it was. Why was Desmond having these visions if not to give him the time and forewarning he needed to prevent them coming to pass? If they were inevitable, then what was the point in him being tortured with the knowledge that he had known what was coming but had been completely unable to stop it from happening? He had watched Charlie die so many times in these visions and to have to see it actually come to pass would be horrific.

“You’ll have to tell Charlie,” she said. “I know that you’ve only been telling him after the fact, but now that these visions are coming with more warning before you have to spring into action, I think you ought to tell him.”

Desmond grimaced. “Please, Claire. It’s bad enough that I’ve seen it and I’ve told you. You saw what happened when we had the incident with the bird. Knowing doesn’t make it any easier for him.”

“It’s his life, Desmond. He deserves to know. If it was the other way round and Charlie had seen you drowning in an underwater computer room, wouldn’t you want to know? You having these visions is giving you some control over the future, but it’s Charlie’s future that you’re shaping. Don’t you think that he ought to have some of that control himself?”

She shifted Aaron over to her other breast, patting his back.

“I just don’t want him to have that burden hanging over him.” Desmond sighed, readjusting the blankets over Charlie’s sleeping form as if that could somehow protect him from the perils that were about to befall him.

“So, you’ll just carry it by yourself?”

Desmond gave a huff of laughter. “I’m not carrying it by myself. You made me tell you, remember.”

Claire rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t count. There are three of us in this relationship, Desmond. We can’t leave Charlie out of secrets like this. I know you care about him so very deeply, so why don’t you trust him with this knowledge as well?”

“It’s not a question of trust, Claire. It’s because I care so much that I don’t want him to know.”

“I know you mean well. I do. But trying to shield him from this for his own good isn’t going to work out.”

“Trying to shield who from what for who’s own good?” Charlie’s sleep-slurred voice joined the conversation and he opened one bleary eye, looking up at Desmond. “Are you two talking about me?”

“Yes.” Desmond kissed Charlie’s forehead. “Now go back to sleep.”

“But you can’t be talking about me whilst I’m not there! What is it that you need to tell me?”

“It can wait till morning. I don’t think you’ll fully appreciate it in the right way if you’re half asleep.”

Charlie half sat up and glared at Desmond, the force somewhat lessened by his eyes squinting against the darkness and his hair sticking out at even more angles than normal.

“Have you had another vision?”

“It can wait,” Desmond repeated firmly. “The world’s not going to end until after breakfast, I promise.”

Charlie didn’t look entirely convinced, but lay back down nonetheless, even if his brow remained furrowed for a long time afterwards.

It didn’t look like Desmond was going to be getting back to sleep any time soon, and Claire couldn’t entirely say that she blamed him given what he had seen. She rocked Aaron against her shoulder to wind him and fell to thinking again. Whatever happened, they were going to have to tell Charlie now; he wasn’t going to let them forget this midnight confab even if Desmond did want to keep it from him. She could understand his reasons, but at the same time, a lack of transparency had got them into so much bother in the past. Being honest about everything that was going on was what had eventually led them to the place that they were in now. Sure, their relationship was likely never to be absolutely perfect, but that wasn’t what Claire was looking for. She just wanted something that had the capacity and potential to grow stronger, and she felt that this thing between the three of them had that potential, in as much as anything on this strange island would ever be able to go the distance.

Ultimately, it was Charlie’s life. As much as she was determined to save everyone, it was up to every individual to decide their own fate and have some kind of a hand in their own destiny. She’d let other people control her future before. She’d let Richard Malkin talk her into taking this flight, convinced that it would be for the best, and this was where it had led her. Ultimately he had achieved his aim, she and Aaron were together and would remain so for the foreseeable future. Whilst she was very happy with that and she knew now that she would have regretted it terribly if she had gone ahead with the adoption, she was still unsure how she felt about the fact that the decision had been taken out of her hands.

Or had it? She could just as easily have not taken this flight and stayed in Australia and given her baby up like she had planned, but she had chosen to get on that plane. Maybe something bigger than herself was at work.

Either way, when it came to a matter of life and death, she knew that she and Desmond did not have the authority to start trying to work out what was best for Charlie without involving him.

They were all adults, after all, and they needed to work together and act like them.

X

Charlie took the news of Desmond’s latest vision remarkably well, all things considered. For a long time after they told him, he just looked out towards the sea and the mysterious underwater room that was somewhere out there, and Desmond was beginning to wonder if he had even taken in any of what he and Claire had said.

“Why is it always me?” Charlie asked eventually. “Am I just particularly accident prone or does the universe really not like me if it keeps trying to bump me off every five minutes? It’s not like you’ve predicted anyone else’s imminent demise.”

Desmond shrugged. “I really don’t have an answer for you there, brother.”

Charlie fell back to thinking. Claire had gone off to tend to Aaron and left the two men alone to discuss what happened next. It was the vagueness of the timeline that bothered Desmond more than anything. He had no idea where this underwater room even was, let alone when Charlie would be in it. It could be tomorrow, it could be next week, it could be in a couple of hours depending on what Jack and the rest of them were getting up to. At least with the vision that had led them to Naomi, they’d been in the nice familiar jungle, and in all the others, there was a sense of impending urgency meaning something had to be done Right That Minute to prevent tragedy. Now he felt untethered, some mysterious point in the future had revealed itself and it was unsettling him.

In a way, he knew why he was getting the visions of Charlie. It was because he cared about him. That was clear. He cared about him and he wanted to make sure that he was safe for as long as humanly possible. If Penny were on the island with him and she was getting into dangerous situations on a regular basis then he would probably be having these visions of her as well, but as it was, she wasn’t on the island and therefore she was safe from lightning strikes, ocean currents, and underwater death traps. Claire had said before that there was something that connected the three of them, and whether the visions were cause or effect of that was probably never going to get sorted out in their lifetime. Whatever it was, it was something that bound him and Charlie together, and not something that they could ignore.

"You definitely saw Claire getting on a helicopter and getting away from the island," Charlie said presently. 

Desmond nodded. "Yes, but you heard what she said. She's not letting anyone sacrifice themselves for her."

"I know that, but it's not really her choice, is it? It's my life, and I can choose to sacrifice it if I want."

Desmond took a moment to consider this rather morbid statement and had to agree, but at the same time, he really didn't agree with the logic behind it despite it making some kind of sense.

"I don't think she'd agree with that, though. Whether or not it's down to her, it certainly affects her. If you want to sacrifice yourself in order to save her, than that's obviously your choice, but she's already made it clear that she doesn't want to be saved if it entails any kind of sacrifice. Come on, Charlie, put a sensible hat on here, brother."

"I'm trying," Charlie said. "But right now, all that I can think of is that I have the chance to get Claire off the island and I should really take that chance if I can. Even if it means that I don't get off the island."

"Look, there's got to be another way. We were hoping that if we told you what was going on, then you'd be able to help us think of one."

Charlie nodded. "All right. I suppose that underwater rooms are fairly vague in the grand scheme of things. We probably have time to work out some kind of plan. I hope." He sighed. "Look, Desmond, mate, I don't want to die. I'm really very grateful for all the previous times that your weird future vision has ended up saving my life. I want a future. I mean, before I came to the island I was a washed-up junkie and I didn't really have one. Now that I've met you and Claire, I think that perhaps I do finally have one, and I want to enjoy it. Don't get me wrong. I want to live."

"Well, I'm very glad to hear that," Desmond said. "I think that we'll find a way to allow you to. I just wanted you to know everything. It's like we said when we started this thing, like Claire said. No secrets. So, if you are thinking of going and sacrificing yourself for her, then maybe that's something that you might want to tell her in advance."

"She'd only stop me," Charlie said. 

"Yes, that's the point."

"You're bloody cryptic, you know that?"

Desmond chuckled. "Yeah, I know. I'm just trying to stop you from throwing yourself in the deep end. Literally. I don't want that to happen to you. I don't want you to feel that you have to do that. I want us to find another way, but I didn't want to keep this from you. It wouldn't be right. If we all know what's going on, then we can work to prevent it."

Charlie lay back on the sand, eyes closed as the sun beat down on him. "It's strange," he said. "I wonder what would have happened if you hadn't told me and I'd just gone on being blissfully ignorant. Would you still have tried to save me when it came down to it, like when we went to find Naomi? I was on course for an arrow in the neck then, and at the time you thought that it might have brought you to Penny, but you ended up saving me anyway. Would you have done the same this time around, even though my death would lead to Claire getting off the island?"

"Of course I would, Charlie, what kind of a question is that?" Desmond sighed. "Look, it's not going to come to that now, so there's no point in us trying to work out what we would or wouldn't have done if we hadn't known about it. The very fact that I've told you and Claire about this means that it's already up in the air. We know that this is going to happen, but we don't know when or how or even if there'll be a get-out clause at the end of it all."

Charlie opened his eyes and turned towards Desmond, squinting. 

"You're really not being very encouraging, mate," he said. "Am I going to die from switch-flipping or aren't I?"

"I don't know! And to be honest, Charlie, that's what scares me the most. With everything else, it's clear what's going to happen, when it's going to happen, and what we have to do to stop it happening. Every other time I've had a vision like this I've known what to do to jump in and rescue you from it at the last moment, but this time I don't know what's coming, I don't know how to change it, and that _terrifies_ me."

Charlie was silent for a long time after Desmond's confession, and for a moment Desmond wondered if he'd even taken any of what he'd just said in. 

"You know, I've always thought that being able to see the future would be quite useful, but the more I hear about it from you, the more I think it sucks."

Desmond nodded. "Yeah. It does suck. Mainly because I never seem to be able to have any happy visions. If the next time I sleep I could have a nice peaceful dream about us all getting off this godforsaken island and going home and living happily ever after, then I'll be really happy, but by now I've worked out that it's just not going to happen."

"Do you think you'll always have these flashes?" Charlie asked. 

"I really, really hope not."

It was the first time that he'd had a sober conversation with Charlie about the visions and the pain that they caused him. He'd made the drunken confession when Charlie and Hurley had been trying to get the truth out of him, but he had never really sat and thought about it with a clear head as much as he was doing now.

"Maybe you've been given more time with this one for a reason," Charlie suggested. "Maybe it's supposed to mean something more. Maybe it's like a challenge or something."

"I don't think so, Charlie. I don't think it works as logically as that."

"You never know."

They fell back into silence, each man lost in his own thoughts about what was to come next. It was such an uncertain future, and it was only going to get more uncertain the more they tried to change it. Desmond thought back over all the consequences that he had seen over the course of his future visions, the various things that had happened as a result of them. The first two had brought Charlie's suspicion upon him and then brought the cathartic release of letting someone else in on the secret. The third had let Claire in on the secret and had ultimately brought the three of them together in a relationship that Desmond was pretty much ready to give his right arm to protect. The fourth, however, and the one that he had, up until now, been the most loath to prevent, had brought the freighter within reach, had brought them a taste of escape and rescue and a future life outside of the island, and it had done that despite the vision not panning out exactly as he had seen it. 

It was perfectly possible that the positive outcomes of his latest vision would still happen even if he were to prevent Charlie's death again, and that gave him hope. 

There was only one thing that continued to make him rather wary, and that was the divide in the camp between the various factions regarding whether or not to trust Naomi, and at the same time, there was something about the whole situation that Desmond couldn't quite put his finger on. As elated as he was at the prospect of rescue and the knowledge that Penny had not forgotten about him and had in fact been searching for him all this time, there was something just a little bit too good to be true about all the coincidences that had led them to this moment. 

He pushed it to the back of his mind and tried to focus on the task at hand, namely that of ensuring Charlie's continued survival no matter what the future might throw at them. 

X

Charlie thought long and hard about the news that Desmond had just given him. He knew that he should talk to Claire and Desmond about it, but in his eyes, there was very little to talk about. He could understand Claire not wanting anyone to sacrifice themselves on her watch, and he wondered again what would have been the consequences if Desmond had kept his vision to himself. Charlie could have gone to his death none the wiser, and Claire would be off the island, again, none the wiser that these things had been foreseen. 

But Charlie thought that perhaps it might not happen like that, because Claire knew about the visions, and there was always the possibility that she would cotton on to the fact that Desmond had known and not told her, or known and not done anything to prevent Charlie's death this time. He really wanted Desmond to be able to take care of Claire if the worst came to the worst, but that was hardly going to work if Claire was mad at him for this turn of events. In the long run, it was probably better that everyone was in the know. As Claire had said when they'd first started - no more secrets.

He thought again about what he had said to Desmond, that it was his own life and he could choose to sacrifice it if he wanted, that it wasn't Claire's choice to make whether or not he should live or die in that respect. But when it came down to it, he realised that wasn't strictly true. If he did choose to make that sacrifice, then it would be Claire and Desmond who would have to live with consequences, of knowing that perhaps the only reason they were safe was because someone they loved had died in order to make it so. That was something that they would have to carry with them for the rest of their lives, and it was not something that Charlie would have to worry about. Was it selfish of him to put that burden onto them in the vain hope of assuring their own survival? Survivors' guilt was definitely a thing; he had seen it often enough in their fellow crash survivors who were wondering why they had lived whilst everyone else on the plane had died. 

"Hey."

He opened his eyes and looked up to see Claire leaning over him, Aaron in her arms as usual, dozing peacefully against her chest. Aaron was not generally a fussy baby, but he infinitely preferred being held to being in his crib, and Charlie wondered if that was cause or effect of him being held so much. If Claire wasn't holding him, then generally someone else was. He felt safe in people's arms, no matter who they were. 

"How are you holding up?" Claire asked as Charlie managed to wrestle himself into a sitting position against the soft sand beneath him. As he did so, and as Claire giggled and smiled her luminous smile, Charlie came to a realisation. 

He was absolutely, definitely in love with this woman and he wanted to spend the rest of his life, however long or short that might be, with her. With any luck, they could avoid the inevitability that Desmond's visions seemed to bring with them, and they would get to grow old together - with Desmond and Penny alongside them of course. 

Even if it wasn't to be, even if his destiny was to drown flipping switches in an underwater room, Charlie knew that he wasn't going to give up on Claire and Aaron before he had to. 

They had time. That was the only good thing about this latest visions of Desmond's. They had time in which to plan and re-plan and maybe discard all the plans altogether and just wing it. For the first time there was a really good buffer and they could work with it. They could work together. Live together, die alone as Jack was always so fond of saying. 

Charlie didn't know if he was actually going to die or not. Right now, he didn't even know whether him dying would be a good thing or not. He wasn't suicidal and he did not welcome the thought of death, but he was more than aware of the concept of the greater good, however much he might not like the notion. 

"Charlie?"

He remembered that he hadn't actually responded to any of Claire's questions and he shook his head, bringing him back into the present. 

"I'm all right," he said. "I mean, being told that someone's foreseen your death is never exactly pleasant, but I'm feeling a bit more positive about it this time. At least we've got time to think of a battle plan, right?"

He had no idea what that battle plan was going to be. He didn't have the faintest clue. He didn't even know where they might find any underwater rooms on the island, although there was certainly plenty of water around it. 

All he knew was that for whatever time he had left, he was going to spend it with Claire and Desmond, and he was going to be happy.


	3. Part Three

It was when they overheard Jack, Juliet and Sayid talking about the Looking Glass station that they realised what was going to happen and how it was going to happen. The Looking Glass, a station underwater where the island’s communication channels were controlled from. A room underwater, with lights and switches, and the very distinct possibility of drowning within it.

Since he had become part of the castaway group on the beach, Desmond had received the distinct impression that there was something of an A-team situation going on amongst the survivors, with Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Sayid and now also Juliet forming that team. Given that they seemed to take everything upon themselves, it would be very easy just to let them get on with it and do whatever it was that they needed to do to shut off whatever it was that was jamming the signal and get them off the island onto the boat. Charlie wouldn’t need to go anywhere near it. He wouldn’t even need to dabble his toes in the water.

Desmond sighed, watching the little group huddling over the Looking Glass plans, and he wondered just how much the future would change if Charlie wasn’t the one to go down and flip that switch. Would Claire and Aaron still be able to get off the island? Even if they went down there and Charlie survived in whatever way, it was still closer to his vision than him not being there at all.

They still hadn’t come up with any kind of concrete solution. Claire was determined that she wasn’t going to lose either of them, and certainly not Charlie, but in recent days Desmond had received the impression that Charlie wasn’t so sure himself. And it had to be said, as much as Desmond wanted to keep everyone safe for as long as he could, he really, really wanted Claire and Aaron to be able to get off the island at almost any cost. The question was, how close to almost any cost was he prepared to go? Was Claire’s escape even related to Charlie’s death in any way? This was the first time that he had ever seen the further fate of anyone other than Charlie in his visions, and he wasn’t sure if it was because there was a direction cause and effect link or if it was because he was becoming so much closer to Claire as a result of his relationship with Charlie and her.

“What’s going on there then?”

Desmond turned on hearing Charlie’s voice, then focussed his attention back on the action group getting plans together a little further along the beach.

“We’ve found our underwater room,” Desmond said. It was all he needed to say. Charlie’s eyes widened momentarily, and he looked from Jack’s group to Desmond and back again.

“Right.”

He didn’t say anything else for a long time, and then a certain determination that Desmond had never seen before came over his face, and he set off along the beach to go and see what was going on for himself.

“Charlie! Wait!”

Desmond scrabbled to his feet and tore off after him, arriving at the group and having to take a step back on seeing the complex plans spread out on the sand that they were all poring over.

“I’ll go,” Charlie said.

For a long moment, the others looked at him as if he had grown two extra heads, and Charlie rolled his eyes.

“What? Just because I’ve never shot a polar bear or wrestled an Other doesn’t mean I can’t flip a switch in some weird underwater room. I mean, how hard can it be, right? Besides, you lot are all going to have to stay here to make sure that the Others fall for the bait and that no-one ambushes you on your way to the radio tower. If you’re going to send someone down to flip switches, don’t you think it ought to be someone slightly more expendable that you don’t need to kick arse here?”

“You’re not expendable, Charlie.” The sound of everyone else speaking in unison with him made Desmond feel very justified in saying it, and also reminded him that he’d just run across the beach after Charlie to stop him from making this sacrifice, and now he was standing here beside him like a lemon, not adding anything to the conversation.

“I’ll go with him,” he said, both in an effort to add something of value and justify his sprint, and to hopefully get the opportunity to talk some sense into Charlie.

The rest of the group continued to look at each other before Jack gave a nod.

“All right. I guess that we could use all the volunteers that we can get to get this thing sorted out. I suppose we ought to be on the lookout for Locke throwing a spanner in the works as well.”

“I know he wants to stay on the island, but I don’t think that he’s going to the lengths of paddling out into the ocean to sabotage our own attempts to leave,” Desmond said. He paused. He hadn’t exactly known Locke as long as the rest of them. “Well. I don’t think he would.”

Kate scoffed. “When it comes to Locke, I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

“So, where is this physics-defying underwater power station, then?” Charlie asked. He was definitely going ahead with the plan, and Desmond could only smile and nod and go along with it. Maybe he could knock him out with an outrigger paddle or something on the way.

By the time they’d worked out a plan and the A-team were fully on board with Charlie and Desmond taking on the critical task of switching off whatever was jamming the signal, Desmond was no closer to working out a plan for Charlie’s survival, but he was absolutely, completely sure that no matter what happened, he was going to do something. Whereas before he had been agonising over what to do, now he was determined. He’d let Charlie come far too close to death once before when they’d been to find Naomi in the jungle, and Claire had already said that there would be no sacrifices for her sake on her watch.

Now all Desmond had to do was work out how to stop Charlie from sacrificing himself in the first place.

They were on their way back to their tent, safely out of the earshot of the A-team, and of Claire who was over at the pantry chatting with Rose and Bernard, when he could finally grab Charlie and try and talk some sense into him.

“Are you insane?” he asked. “What are you doing?”

“I’m getting Claire and Aaron off this bloody island, mate,” Charlie said. “If I have to drown by flipping switches, then maybe that’s the way it’s got to be.”

“Claire already said…”

“Yeah, I know.” Charlie sighed, scuffing his shoes in the sand and not meeting Desmond’s eyes for a long time. Even after he began to speak again, he was still only looking at his feet.

“I just think that maybe this time, it’s got to happen,” he began. “This is the fifth time you’ve seen me die. Don’t you think that maybe the universe is trying to tell me something here? Maybe this is just what’s meant to be, and every time you save me from my certain doom, you just piss off the universe a little bit more and it comes up with a brand-new way to kill me. It’s like Final Destination, you know. You can never cheat death. It’s always going to get you in the end.”

“I was in the hatch before it came out,” Desmond said. Charlie did have a point, in a way. Maybe the universe was trying to kill him. That still didn’t mean that they had to let it win.

It was all just so bloody unfair. Just when they’d got everything onto an even keel and things had been looking up for all three of them, this had had to happen to tip everything off kilter once more.

There were no words to express Desmond’s frustration in that moment; there were only actions. He cupped Charlie’s face and pulled him in for a kiss, a fierce and desperate one that he poured all his feelings into, praying that Charlie got it, that he realised just how much he meant and just how important and not at all expendable he was.

Charlie gave a squeak against his mouth and almost pulled away before relaxing into it. They were right in the middle of the beach and anyone could see them. In fact, most people were probably looking at them right now in astonishment. Although it had become clear to most people that something was going on when Desmond had started spending more and more time in Charlie and Claire’s tent, including a few overnight stays, they had never made their relationship public in that respect. This would be the beach camp’s first confirmation that yes, they were together, they were bi and poly and proud and they really didn’t care what anyone else thought. Well, Desmond certainly didn’t care, and from the way that Charlie was kissing him back with equal vigour, he didn’t think that he cared either.

“What was that for?” Charlie asked, breathless, once Desmond finally let him up for air.

Desmond gave him an incredulous look. “Can you really not guess? Really? I know you’ve got some self-esteem issues, brother, but that’s ridiculous. That was because I don’t want to lose you, and even if you’re determined to go on this suicide mission, then I’m going to be with you all the way. Because you’re not alone, Charlie. You have people who care about you and would be devastated to lose you. You have me and Claire and Aaron.”

Charlie’s smile could probably have powered the hatch for three years on its own, and Desmond thought that perhaps he’d managed to get through to him.

“I’ve had an idea,” Charlie said. “Honest to God lightbulb moment. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before. I know what to do. I know how it’s all going to work.”

He threw his arms around Desmond then took off back towards the tent, leaving Desmond standing confused in the middle of the beach, wondering what kind of epiphany he’d missed.

“That’s good,” he said faintly.

It was only then that he really noticed the rest of the camp’s eyes on him, with some visible jaws dropped at what had just taken place. Over by the pantry, Claire was watching him with Aaron on her hip and a proud expression on her face. _Yes, those are my boys,_ her smile said. _I’m not going to lose either of them to a watery grave._

To the rest of the camp, Desmond just gave a shrug and set off towards the tent after Charlie, hoping to gain some insight into whatever it was that had given him this new lease of life, leaving the spectators to their own conclusions.

X

Charlie had a plan. Well, he had about half of a plan depending on what happened once they got down to the Looking Glass and found out what was actually waiting for them there. Maybe it was less than half a plan. Maybe it wasn't a plan at all. All he knew was that he really didn't plan on dying today, and that he couldn't tell Desmond that. Desmond had probably guessed given that Charlie had been remarkably upbeat throughout the last couple of days since they'd volunteered to make the dive; his behaviour was hardly that of a man who had accepted his inevitable fate and was giving up on life. No, Charlie had a plan to survive this latest encounter with death, but he was acutely aware that if he told Desmond his theory then it would be immediately undermined.

All the same, that didn't mean that he couldn't take some precautions just in case the plan turned out to be not that great a plan after all and he did meet his doom down there.

They'd paddled out to the location of the Looking Glass, following the power supply cables from the beach, and now they were sitting right above it, ready to make the plunge. Charlie peered down through the water, but it was too deep to see anything of their ultimate destination other than an ominous shadow sitting on the ocean floor. It was incredibly deep, and even though Charlie considered himself an accomplished swimmer, even he was getting cold feet at the prospect of actually going down there. At least Desmond would be coming too.

"Are you ready?" Desmond asked presently. "All the pieces of the grand plan that you don't want to share are in place?"

"It's not that I don't want to share it, it's more that I'm worried that something will go wrong if I do." And also because he didn't have all that much of a plan in the first place and Desmond would probably have a heart attack if he realised just how unprepared he was. He'd probably get knocked out with a paddle and Desmond would go down alone which, although good from the perspective that Desmond had not foreseen his own death and therefore would probably be all right, it didn't go along with what Charlie had in mind for defeating his destiny once and for all, rather than just keep putting it off.

"I know, I know. You've got your reasons. I do hope that if we both get out of here alive then you'll share them with me."

"Of course. Let's just get this over with first though, ok?" He paused. "Desmond, if anything does happen down there..."

"It's not going to."

"Yes, but if it does... Hang on, have you had any more flashes?"

Desmond shook his head. "No. I don't tend to have one until after the previous one's come to pass. We'll have to get through this first before whatever oracle that it is deigns to give me any more clues."

"Ok. Good. Well, not good, but you know what I mean. Anyway, if something does happen, promise me that you'll take care of Claire and Aaron."

"With my life, Charlie."

Charlie shuddered at the phrase. "All right. No more talk of life and death. I'm going down. Give me enough time to get down there, then follow me."

Desmond nodded his agreement and Charlie pulled off his shoes. He'd sounded a lot surer of himself than he actually felt, but they said that if you acted a part well enough then everyone would believe that it was true.

He took a deep breath and dived ungainly into the water, making the outrigger sway on the waves. The salt water stung at his eyes, but he just kept swimming downwards to the structure that was becoming a lot less shadowy but no less ominous. He had a plan. Everything was going to be all right.

X

“Well, that was exciting.”

Desmond’s tone of voice made it clear that it had been anything but exciting, but Charlie didn’t question it. He was far more concerned with trying to memorise the code that Bonnie had given him, because it was a lot of numbers, and he was sure that he wasn’t going to remember them all. Between Bonnie, Greta, and Patchy returning from the dead for the - was it the second or the third time – it had been quite the ride; not at all the plain sailing that Charlie had hoped it would be. The plan had been to get in and get out again; he hadn’t bargained on being tied up for a few hours or witnessing Desmond harpoon a man.

Still. Needs must, and sometimes, needs must use harpoons in the name of getting everyone off the island safely.

Charlie sincerely hoped that Desmond had a head for numbers. He had to have done, he’d been punching them into the computer in the hatch for three years. Although, those were the same numbers over and over.

He shook his head, otherwise the hatch numbers would supersede the code numbers. Who in their right mind had a code like that? It was utterly ridiculous. Still, there was nothing for it. He entered the room, taking a deep breath although he wasn’t exactly sure why. There wasn’t any water in it yet. This was the moment of truth, the moment in which he’d very quickly find out if his plan was worth anything.

He keyed in the first few digits of the code, listening to the tones the keypad made, and he came to a realisation. He didn’t need to know the rest of the code. It was already drilled into the back of his mind. He didn’t know the numbers, but he would recognise that sound pattern anywhere.

“It’s Good Vibrations,” he said to himself. “Whoever programmed this was a musician.”

He ignored the numbers, going for the sounds instead. Now that everything depended on it, he was second-guessing his own memory. He closed his eyes and hummed the famous bars to himself a couple of times. He could do this. Everything was going to be all right and he was determined not to drown if he could help it.

He punched in the rest of the code, and the readout on the screen told him that it was correct. All he had to do now was flip the switch.

_You flip a switch. The light goes out. And then you drown._

Charlie took a deep breath and flipped the switch. Above him, the flashing orange light died. He closed his eyes and waited for something to happen, some kind of rush of water from the depths. Outside the console room he could hear Desmond rushing around collecting Scuba gear for the swim back up to the outrigger. Everything was normal. Had his plan worked without him having to do anything, then?

"Hello?"

A scratchy, staticky voice from the console brought him back to himself and all thoughts of his imminent demise fled as he found himself face to face with a rather grainy satellite image of Penny.

"Penny!"

"I'm sorry, who are you? Where are you?"

"Oh, yes, right, sorry, I'm Charlie, you don't know me, but I know Desmond. Desmond!" he yelled back out into the main station. "Desmond, Penny's on the phone!” He turned back to the screen and the incredibly confused Miss Widmore. "Are you on the boat?"

Her expression just became even more confused. "Pardon?"

"The boat." Charlie felt his insides begin to turn to ice. "You know, the boat that Naomi came from. The boat that she said you sent to come and rescue us. And Desmond. Desmond get in here!"

"Charlie, I have no idea what you're talking about, I'm in London, I don't have a boat, I haven't sent one. I don't know anyone named Naomi."

"Oh crap."

"Charlie?"

Desmond was running towards the console room, Penny was trying to work out what on earth was going on, and there was a tapping noise at the porthole. Charlie looked over at it on instinct, and the ice in his guts became even worse as he saw Patchy grinning at him from the water outside, Scuba gear on, holding a...

"Where the hell did you get a hand grenade from? And don't you ever die?"

"Charlie!" Both Penny and Desmond were screaming his name in unison, and then there was the rush of water that Charlie had been expecting. Oh crap. This was definitely not part of his plan. He couldn't very well drown now when he'd just learned that Claire getting on that helicopter might not be the escape from the island that they wanted for her after all.

The door was a little way open and he pushed it further, the rush of water doing the rest, and he was swept out straight into Desmond, sending them both flying as the station began to flood.

"It's not Penny's boat!" Charlie yelped, trying to keep his head above water.

"What?"

"Naomi's boat..." He decided that it would probably be better to focus on getting out of the Looking Glass rather than trying to explain everything to Desmond when they were both about to drown, and he took a gasp of air before diving under, out towards the pool where they'd entered. The breath hadn't really been big enough and his head was pounding with the need to let out the air and take another breath; black spots were dancing in front of his eyes. He felt a hand grab him and in his oxygen starved panic, he thought it was Patchy caught up to him again and he flailed about trying to shake him off. Then he realised it was Desmond, and he grabbed the scuba mask that was floating around between them, gratefully taking a gulp of air. Desmond had evidently only been able to grab one before everything had flooded, but it was better than nothing, and they slowly made their way back up to the surface and the outrigger together.

For a long while after they clambered back into it, all they could do was just lie there and get their breath back whilst the scorching sun attempted to dry them.

"What were you saying about Penny's boat?" Desmond asked eventually, and on hearing the words, Charlie sat bolt upright again, suddenly and immediately alert.

"It's not Penny's boat! I spoke to Penny in the room before it flooded."

"You spoke to Pen?"

"Why do you think I was yelling for you to come over, you cretin?" Charlie gave a huff of annoyance. "Anyway, Naomi's lying. She said that Penny had sent her and the boat to come and rescue us. Penny's still in London and she has no idea what's going on, she doesn't know anything about this!"

For a long time, Desmond didn't say anything, and Charlie was wondering if he had water in his ears or was suffering from some kind of oxygen deprivation to the brain. He was on the verge of shaking him to try and get across the vast implications of what he'd just learned, when Desmond finally spoke.

"Well, that's a bugger."

"It's more than a bugger!" Charlie exclaimed. "We need to warn everyone else that Naomi and the other people on the boat are not what they seem! And how did Naomi know that we'd trust her if she said that Penny had sent her? Anyway, that's beside the point, the point is that everyone's in danger and you'd better have a vision of Claire not getting on that helicopter soon because who knows what might happen if she does!"

"Charlie, I completely appreciate the need to warn the others, but we can't exactly do that whilst we're in the middle of the ocean, so shall we get back to the beach first and take it from there?"

Considering Desmond was usually one for panicking, the calm and pragmatic approach surprised Charlie, and he dutifully took up his paddle as they steered back towards the beach.

"Since we're both still alive, can I ask about your plan now?" Desmond asked as they paddled.

"I guess so. I just had a hunch. All these times you've prophesised my death, you've been the one to save me from it."

"That's true. I suppose that since I was the one who had the foreknowledge, it made sense for me to be the one to save you. That vision had to have come to me for a reason."

"I know. Anyway, I had an idea that if I was the one to save myself, then that would break the cycle, so to speak. If you knew what was coming but didn't interfere yourself - you left my fate in my own hands, either to accept it or try to change it. So, I chose to try and change it instead. And since I'm still here, I guess it worked. Well, for now at least.”

Desmond nodded. “I can’t fault the logic, certainly. Here’s hoping that you’ve beaten it once and for all.”

By the time they got back to the beach, it was clear that a lot had been going on whilst they’d been out at the Looking Glass. To call it chaos would have been doing it a favour. Charlie looked at the Dharma van, and the destroyed tents, and the dead Others, and then he looked at the little group of their own survivors who were gathered around.

“Do I even want to ask what happened here?”

“Probably not,” Sayid said, at the same time as Hurley said: “I ran over a bunch of guys.”

“Right. You know what, I’m not going to ask, because we’ve got a bigger problem on our hands.”

Sawyer just looked at him with a raised eyebrow. “What kind of a problem, short stuff?”

Charlie rolled his eyes at the moniker but there wasn’t enough time to get angry, not when Jack was quite possibly taking them towards a rescue that was anything but, and he launched into his explanation of what had happened down in the Looking Glass, and the ominous message from Penny that the boat was nothing to do with her.

Juliet and Sawyer looked at each other.

“We need to tell Jack,” she said. “I guess it’s up to everyone else to decide for themselves what they want to do, but we need to let them know.”

Sawyer nodded his agreement. “Yeah. We’re meeting up with all the others at the cockpit this evening. Come on, we ought to get going.”

He shouldered his rifle and took off into the trees, and gradually the rest of the camp followed on behind him, grabbing what weapons they had and filling up water bottles. Charlie just collapsed down onto the sand with a groan.

“Really?” he muttered. “I’ve just nearly drowned, paddled back to shore and given you incredibly important bad news, and now we’re going on another route march? Let a bloke get his breath back, why don’t you?”

Beside him, he heard Desmond chuckle, and then a familiar tanned hand was holding a water bottle in front of his face.

“Come on,” he said, giving Charlie a hand back to his feet. “The sooner we get going, the sooner we can reassure Claire that you haven’t been doing any self-sacrificing on her behalf, and the sooner we can work out a plan for what’s going to happen now that getting on the helicopter probably isn’t such a good idea.”

The meeting at the cockpit was exactly the shitshow that Charlie had expected it to be, with everyone arguing with everyone else about whether to trust the new arrivals or not. It was clear that the party was splitting into two – those who were with Jack and wanted to get off the island at any cost, and those who were with Locke and thought that it would be safer to stay firmly put rather than to entrust their rescue to a group of unknowns.

But through it all, Charlie only had thoughts for Claire, and when he saw her in the gaggle of survivors that Jack had led through the trees, he ran over to her, wrapping his arms around her and Aaron.

“The hero of the hour,” she said, before giggling and kissing him. “I’m so glad that you’re all right.” She looked over his shoulder at Desmond, who was standing a little apart, letting them have their own moment. “Thanks for taking care of him, Desmond.”

Desmond shrugged. “No, he took care of himself, actually. He had a plan all along.”

Claire just smiled. “I’m very happy about that.” She looked over at Locke and Jack and sighed. “What now, Charlie? Something’s telling me that we ought to go with Locke, if these people can’t be trusted to get us out then I don’t want to risk Aaron’s safety like that. On the other hand, though…”

On the other hand, neither Charlie or Desmond entirely trusted Locke, and whilst Charlie would admit that through the haze of his own jealousy, Locke had been a good friend to Claire, sticking with Desmond and Charlie mattered more to her.

“If we stay together, then we’ll be all right,” Charlie said. “So, wherever you want to go, wherever you feel that Aaron will be safest, we’ll go with you.”

“That’s the problem,” Claire said. “The only place I know that Aaron will be safe is with me.”

Over in the main group, Rose had announced her intentions to remain with Jack’s group, and Charlie knew that Rose had no intentions of leaving the island, whether the newcomers supposedly sent to rescue them were benign or not.

“I think we’ll be better off at the beach,” he said. “We know it there, it’s familiar territory. And I think you’d feel safer there. A nice, wide open space. Hard to sneak up on someone from the ocean.”

Claire laughed weakly. “I guess you’re right.” She hooked her arm through his. “Back to the beach it is, and on the way you can tell me all about your plan for cheating death.”

X

To say that the next few days on the beach were fraught would probably be the understatement of the century. Although they had decided to stick together, Desmond was worried about Penny, and how come the people on the freighter who had said that they'd been sent by her, and whom she knew nothing about, knew about her. If she was in danger and it was somehow Desmond's fault, then he would never forgive himself, and so it was with a heavy heart that he went with Sayid out to the freighter to try and work out what was going on. 

That was when things had started to get scary. Claire cuddled Aaron close as a confused and terrified Desmond's voice resounded over the satphone, convinced that he was in 1996. It was the lack of recognition that cut the deepest, the fact that only a few short hours ago, everything had been all right and well in the world, and they had been rejoicing in Charlie's survival, and now Desmond didn't have a clue who she and Charlie were. Daniel was trying his hardest to explain everything to Desmond, and Claire knew that she and Charlie crowding around him probably wasn't going to be helping matters, but at the same time, she desperately wanted to know what was going on and if he was getting any better. 

A part of her really wished that he hadn't gone. They were meant to stick together; that was the entire reason why they'd all gone back to the beach, but Claire couldn't really blame Desmond for wanting to make sure that Penny was all right. It was strange, she was just as much a part of this relationship as the three of them were, despite her being on the opposite side of the world and not knowing anything about Claire and Charlie. Her importance in Desmond's life had become an importance in all the rest of their lives as well, and Claire had to wonder if she would ever get the chance to meet the mysterious woman. She'd seen her photograph; Desmond never went anywhere without it. She hoped that they would meet someday. She wanted to meet the person that Desmond cared about so much. 

The waiting for news was getting to be painful, and Claire had taken to walking up and down the beach with Aaron on her hip just to try and get rid of some of the nervous energy that was plaguing her at the moment. The rest of the group left her to it, although she was getting some odd looks from Charlotte. Daniel was too preoccupied with sorting out what was happening on the freighter to pay much attention, and everyone else knew about the relationship. Charlotte was clearly intrigued as to why Charlie and Claire, ostensibly a monogamous couple, could be so incredibly worried about a single man. 

There was an exclamation of triumph and Claire turned to see Charlie running across the beach as fast as he could over the uneven sand, his arms windmilling for balance as he came over to her. 

"He's ok," he said breathlessly. "Whatever it was that Daniel told him to do, it worked. So, there's no danger of him losing all his remaining marbles just yet."

Claire breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank god for that. Are they any closer to working out what's going on with the freighter and who sent it?"

Charlie shook his head. "No, I don't think so. Apparently everyone's being rather cagey and no-one really trusts Desmond and Sayid enough to tell them anything, but it sounds like half the crew's going mad, so maybe we are better off cutting our losses and staying here." Charlie held his hand up to block out the sun and looked out towards the sea, beyond the horizon to where the freighter was. "I'm half-inclined to think that Desmond and Sayid might just commandeer the thing and get us all out here by any means necessary."

"Well, Sayid could certainly do it. I'm not quite so sure about Desmond but he's determined when he wants to be, we all know that." Claire glanced over in the same direction, wishing that she could see the freighter and reassure herself that Desmond was all right. "It'll be ok. We've got to stay positive."

It was hard, though, when things kept going wrong and it wasn't entirely clear who could be trusted. Even within the network of the freighter crew, there were clear divisions. Those like Charlotte, Daniel and Miles who had come on what they perceived to be a scientific expedition, and those who were far more concerned with wiping Linus off the face of the planet. Considering that Locke had taken Linus back to the Others' village with him, Claire was quite glad that she hadn't gone along as well. 

When it became clear that nowhere on the island was going to be safe from the mercenaries that the freighter had brought along with its possible allies, Claire and Charlie looked at each other. Sayid had come back with the raft and was loading people onto it, ready to evacuate. The rest of the A-Team were all over the place; Hurley was nowhere to be found. Desmond, however, was on the freighter. He was out there, and he was ready to receive them, ready to make sure that they could get off the island once and for all. For all they might not have trusted the freighter folk to start with, and for all they had been justified in that belief, right now that boat was the only way for them to get away safely.

"You need to go," Charlie said, nodding towards the Zodiac craft that Sayid was quickly filling with people. "You and Aaron need to get on that boat and get out to the freighter."

"What about you?" 

"I'll be ok, I'll get the next boat." Charlie was ushering her forwards. There was only going to be one place left in the boat, and she couldn't ask anyone else to stay behind just so that she could make sure that Charlie was going to be all right. "Desmond's already there, so he'll make sure that you're ok. It's going to be fine, I promise. I'll be right behind you."

Sun and Jin, already sitting in the boat, gave Charlie a grateful smile as Daniel pushed it off and they headed out towards the freighter. Claire looked behind her until Charlie was no longer visible, and then turned her face into the wind, holding Aaron close and closing her eyes. She could hardly believe it. She was away from the island at last, after she had almost given up hope of ever leaving it. Now, she was one step closer to getting home. 

Of course, getting home presented several more challenges in and of itself. Once they were on the freighter, there was no guarantee that the freighter could get them to where they needed to be, and there was the small matter of them being supposedly dead at the bottom of the ocean. It would certainly cause a stir when they arrived home in Sydney or wherever and the world realised that they were still alive. It would raise all kinds of questions as to where they had been for the past three months and who on earth had the resources and expertise needed to fake an entire plane crash. And of course, why anyone would want to do that in the first place. From what Claire had heard Desmond say in snippets here and there when he had talked about Penny and her father, it seemed that Charles Widmore was certainly the kind of person who would do such a thing and had everything at hand to pull it off. 

There were all kinds of island politics going on that Claire didn't even hope to understand, but she knew instinctively that letting other people know about the island and all the weird and wonderful things that had happened here would not be a good idea. Although there were enough of them that hopefully they wouldn't all immediately be carted off to the mental ward, it was still something of a worry. 

She shook her head and focused on the shape of the freighter as it came into view. There would be time enough to worry about what would come next later. For now, they actually had to get free of the island. If Desmond and Sayid's reports from the freighter were anything to go by, then that might be easier said than done. Its influence seemed to extend far beyond its boundaries. 

Finally, they reached the freighter, and the process of getting everyone off the Zodiac and onto the boat began. Desmond was there assisting with proceedings, and it seemed like, in the absence of the mercenaries who were now swarming all over the island looking for Linus, the rest of the crew were more willing to help with the evacuation of the Oceanic survivors. 

Once everyone was on board, Daniel turned the Zodiac around, and Claire honed in on Desmond. He came over to her, weaving through the scared crowd on the deck, and he put his arms around her and Aaron. 

"I'm so glad that you're ok," he said. "Where's Charlie, how's he doing?"

"He's getting the next boat over, there wasn't room for him and we didn't want to ask anyone else to give up their place when we're so close to finally getting off the island."

"Yeah." Desmond looked guilty, running a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry that I didn't come back with Sayid," he said. "I just... I've spent so long on that island that once I was finally free of it, I didn't want to go back, just in case I never got the chance to get off it again."

"Hey, it's ok." Claire went up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. "I understand. It'll be ok. I'm here now, and Charlie's nearly here, and then we'll be able to get out of here together and work out what the hell happens next."

"Yes." Desmond gave a little sigh, a satisfied sound. He was nearly home, wherever home might be for him. That was another thing to think about. It was one thing for the survivors of the Oceanic flight to be found having been presumed dead, but what about Desmond and Juliet, who'd both been on the island for three years before the plane even crashed? How could they be explained when the time came?

She shook her head, determining to think no more about it. No more worrying today. She'd done enough worrying over the last couple of days to last her a lifetime, and she really needed to concentrate on the present. They weren't out of the woods just yet. 

"You find somewhere to sit with Aaron out of the way," Desmond said, and he guided her over towards a corner, sheltered behind a container. "I just want to see what's going on downstairs, I haven't seen Michael for a while."

"Michael? Michael Dawson? Our Michael? What's he doing here?"

"It's too complicated to explain," Desmond said. "I'm not entirely sure that I understand it myself, but I'll tell you everything in a minute."

He left her then, and Claire just settled down with Aaron. He was getting fussy, wanting to nurse, and Claire realised with a grimace that she hadn't brought any dry nappies with her. They'd have to make do for a while, presumably there were sheets and towels on board the freighter that she could use, although from what she could see of it, the place did look pretty spartan. 

She got Aaron settled on her breast and leaned back against the container, watching the comings and goings. Just a few more minutes and Charlie would be back, and they'd all be safe. Nothing was going to go wrong. They'd figure out what to do, and then their lives could finally move forward. The chopper was coming back, and Claire could just about make out Hurley and Kate inside it. 

That was when everything started to go pear-shaped. 

Claire wasn't sure that she had ever seen so much chaos in one place. Possibly in the aftermath of the crash itself, with fire and fumes and blood and screaming, but she'd been too busy having contractions to really pay much attention to it all then. Now, she was absolutely aware of it, and it terrified her. All she could think about was Charlie, on the Zodiac headed towards a boat that was rigged to explode at any moment. As much as she was desperate for him to get here and get away from the island with her, a part of her knew that he would be safer where he was. Then Desmond was hurrying her towards the helicopter, and they were taking off, and they had come so close, but to no avail. Back to the island they would have to go. 

As they flew overhead, Claire could see the Zodiac beneath them, but she couldn't make out Charlie from so far away. The boat looked like it was still heading towards the freighter, and she wanted to yell at them to go back. 

Then, the freighter blew and everything went blindingly white. 

When Claire opened her eyes, the island was gone. So was the smoking freighter. So was the Zodiac. 

So was Charlie. 


	4. Part Four

**One Year Later**

Claire looked down at her phone, turning it over and over in her hands. Her mum was out running errands and Aaron was down for a nap, and she was struggling with the quiet. Tomorrow would mark a year since they left the island, and left Charlie behind, and Claire had been spending so much time thinking about him lately. Talking about everything with her mum just wasn’t the same, mainly because she couldn’t talk about everything with her mum. In fact, there was barely anything about her time on the island that she could talk to her mum about. They’d had to weave together so many lies in order to cover their backs and keep those that they’d left behind safe that it was easier for her to say nothing at all rather than risk saying something that would give away all their untruths.

It was a terribly difficult situation, because she’d always confided everything to her mum. Even when she’d been in the coma, Claire had still talked to Carole as if she’d been consciously in the room with her. It had been her way of getting everything off her chest, and now she no longer had that failsafe that she’d always had. Carole could tell that something had changed, and that there was something that Claire was keeping from her, but she knew that there was nothing she could do. A part of Claire had been left behind on the island, and Carole had accepted that. What Carole didn’t know was that part that had been left behind took the shape of Charlie, and Claire was aching for that piece of her to be put back into its rightful place in her heart.

She couldn’t talk to her mum. She needed to talk to someone who’d been there and seen it all like she had. Someone else who’d left behind a piece of themselves on the island and knew how incomplete and alone she was feeling.

Since their rescue, Desmond had disappeared off the grid with Penny, hoping to be able to stay out of Mr Widmore’s sights and finally live the happily ever after that they had been chasing for so long. Although he’d said that Claire was welcome to contact him at any time, she’d been reluctant to do so, unsure of where they stood. Everything had been so sudden and frantic when Penny had picked them up and they’d started planning their rescue proper; they’d never really had a chance to talk about their relationship, and more importantly where it was going to go now that Penny was back in Desmond’s life and now that Charlie, the original unifying force that had brought the three of them together in the first place, was no longer there as a lynchpin.

Truth be told, Claire had not expected to still be feeling about Desmond the way that she did. Maybe if there had been a proper conversation with a proper leave-taking, a true farewell, then the feelings would have lessened over time. A definite line would have been drawn under the proceedings and she could have moved on from it and tried to find someone new. As easy as it sounded though, she knew that she wasn’t ever going to be able to move on from the island, not whilst Charlie’s fate was still unknown.

Maybe she was clinging on to Desmond because she knew that he was there, that he was real and solid and well, and she had no idea if Charlie was even alive or not.

Claire rolled her shoulders and decided that it was time to stop second-guessing herself and actually do something about her situation. She began typing out a message on her phone. She couldn’t keep going in this limbo forever.

_Hi Des, it’s Claire. How are things? It’s been a while. Can we talk?_

She sent the message and snapped the phone shut, putting it on the side and determining not to think about it for a while. She had no idea where Desmond was in the world, so it could well be the middle of the night for him and he wouldn’t see the message for another few hours. There was no sense in sitting waiting for a response when there was laundry to be getting on with, and when Aaron would be up again in a few minutes and would want to play.

Her determination lasted all of five minutes before the phone began to ring, and she grabbed it with an enthusiasm that might have been embarrassing had there been anyone watching.

“Hello?”

_“Hi Claire. It’s good to hear your voice.”_ It was good to hear Desmond’s voice too. She hadn’t heard it for so long, and the Scottish lilt brought back memories of the last time that she had seen him, waving them off from the back of the Searcher. _“How are you getting on?”_

“Good, good. I’ve settled back into normal life. Everything’s almost like it was before the island. Well, apart from Mum being awake, of course. And the nice fat settlement from Oceanic Airlines sitting in my bank account that I still don’t really know what to do with. Yes, everything’s good.”

She could tell how painfully false she sounded, and she knew that Desmond would also be able to hear it in Fiji or wherever he was.

_“What’s wrong, Claire?”_ he asked softly, picking up on her unease as if he’d been there in the room with her watching her fidget nervously. _“Come on, you can tell me. You said it yourself, back on the island. No more secrets.”_

It was true; that was the mantra she’d always tried to hold the three of them to whilst they’d been in that relationship, but that had been on the island when things had been different. Now she wasn’t so sure if it should still apply. They were out here in the real world now, back in real society in a place that was far more restricted than their happy little life on the beach had been. Well, happy was maybe stretching it a bit considering all the things that had been constantly going wrong and blowing up around them, but they’d been happy whilst they’d been together, if nothing else.

“I miss you,” she said eventually, leaning back against the sofa, and closing her eyes, trying not to think about the far too short a time that they’d shared on the island. “I miss you, and I miss Charlie, and even though I’ve got Mum and Aaron, I just feel so alone right now.”

_“I miss you and Charlie too,”_ Desmond said. _“And I know that I have Pen now, don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t change that for anything in the world, but I do miss the two of you as well. Makes you wonder what could have been.”_

Claire gave a huff of laughter. “One big happy polyamorous family.”

_“Yes.”_ Desmond was serious, and Claire opened her eyes. She really didn’t want to think about what could have been, because the possibility of it ever being in the future was so very slim.

“Oh Desmond.” She sighed. “I don’t know. I mean, Penny’s an absolutely lovely woman and I’ve seen the two of you together. What you two have is something indescribable. I can only dream of having a relationship like that.”

There was silence on the other ned of the phone and Claire was just beginning to think that Desmond had been cut off when he spoke again.

_“Claire… Penny’s my constant. What we have is something that’s unique, and I’ll never have that kind of love with anyone else, but I don’t think that invalidates what you, Charlie and I had. It’s no more or less, it’s just different.”_ Another long pause. _“I think that maybe this is a conversation that we ought to have in person.”_

Claire’s heart beat painfully in her chest at the hope of seeing Desmond again.

“Yes,” she said. “I’d like that.”

_“We can be in Sydney next week. Will that be all right?”_

“Yes. Yes, that’s great. I can’t wait to see you.”

_“Me neither. It’s been too long. I’ll let you know when we’re arriving. See you soon, Claire.”_

“See you soon, Desmond.”

She hung up and spent a full five minutes staring at the phone. She’d gone from missing Desmond and wondering where she stood with him to making a sort of pseudo-date to meet him in a week’s time. Although she knew that there was a serious discussion to be had when that time came, she didn’t really care at that moment; all she wanted was to see Desmond again.

It was true that there were other survivors whom she could have gone to with her problems. Everyone who had been on that raft with her knew what had happened on the island. Hurley would have been her willing friend and confidante like he had always been, she was sure of it. But everyone else was so far away, and whilst Desmond and Penny might be anywhere in the world, they also had the freedom to travel wherever they wanted at a moment’s notice. They had no obligations tying them down. The only people that they were tied to were each other.

The wait for Desmond to arrive was a tense one, and even Aaron could sense the change in his mother over the course of that week. It seemed to drag by, taking far longer than the five days it actually took before Claire received a text in the early hours of the morning telling her that Desmond and Penny would be docking at ten o’clock. She was already waiting there far before they were due, wandering up and down the docks with Aaron in his stroller, telling herself that she was getting him to sleep when really it was just to try and work off the nervous tension. She hadn’t clapped eyes on Desmond and Penny for a year, but even so, she had no idea why she was so antsy.

“Claire!”

She turned and saw Desmond waving at her from the other end of the wharf. He hadn’t changed a bit. Well, his beard might have been a bit tamer and he might have lost some of the frantic desperation from his entire demeanour, but other than that he was unchanged. Claire resisted the urge to break into a run in order to get to him, but the walk back down the docks seemed to take forever. When she finally met him halfway, she let go of the stroller and threw her arms around him, burying her face in his shoulder and breathing him in, needing to convince herself that he was real and not some kind of elaborate hallucination that her mind had dreamed up to give her some degree of closure when the real world would provide none.

“I’ve missed you so much,” she said. “You know, I don’t think I even realised how much I missed you until I saw you just now.”

“Same.”

They finally broke apart and Claire looked him up and down properly.

“You’re looking well,” she said eventually. It was true. Although it had been the thing that had brought him to the island in the first place, the seafaring life had obviously been good to him.

“So are you. And Aaron’s looking grand as well. He’s grown so much, my, he was only a wee bairn when I saw him last.”

Aaron was looking up at Desmond with interest, no doubt wondering who the strange man who was hugging his mum was. Claire unstrapped him out of the stroller and settled him on her hip, bringing him over to be reintroduced to Desmond.

“Aaron, this is your Uncle Desmond. You probably don’t remember him, you were only a couple of months old when you and Mummy last saw him.”

Aaron didn’t make a sound, obviously still reserving judgment, but the first impressions appeared to be favourable.

Still, if they were talking about families, then it was probably time to deal with the elephant in the room, or rather, the elephant on the docks.

“Is Penny with you?” Claire asked.

Desmond nodded. “Yes. She’s stayed on the boat. She thought it would be easier that way.”

“Does she… Does she know about us? And Charlie? And, you know. The thing between us. I don’t know whether you considered yourselves still together whilst you were on the island, or if…” She trailed off, aware that she was gabbling but wanting to get it all out in the open. She had wanted to see Desmond, she needed his company and his reassuring presence more than anything, but if it was going to cause problems between him and Penny, then she’d rather not be involved. That was a relationship that she didn’t want anything to sour, and no matter what her feelings towards Desmond might be, she didn’t ever want to feel like the mistress. She had far too much self-respect ever to be in that position. Her mother had been in that position, not that she had known she was the other woman at the time. It was something that Claire had always determined she would never be herself.

Desmond nodded. “Yes. She knows. She knows everything. You, Charlie, me. The flashes. The polar bears. All the other bloody insane stuff that happened on the island. I told her everything.”

“And she’s ok with it?” Aaron was suddenly feeling very heavy on her hip and she set him down on his feet; he toddled along beside the stroller as Claire and Desmond made their way over to a bench on the waterfront, then climbed back into it and promptly fell into a nap.

“Well, it was a lot to take in at first, but yes. I think she’s ok with it. I mean, up until now, it’s all been theoretical. Not necessarily in the past, because we’ve both still got those feelings, for each other and for Charlie. At least… I think we both do?”

Claire nodded. “Yes. I still do. I thought that perhaps with the distance and the lack of contact, things would just fade out, but they haven’t.”

“They do say that absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

“Yeah. I never really set much store by that until experiencing it first-hand.” She sighed. “So… What happens now? To be honest, I didn’t even think we’d get this far.”

Desmond gave a little sigh. “Me neither. After everything that happened on the island, it’s so tempting to try and chalk it up to a three-year bad dream.” He paused. “Well, before anything else, I have to tell you that Penny’s pregnant.”

“Oh.” Suddenly that put an entirely different spin on things. If Desmond now had a family of his own, then the likelihood of him wanting to be a part of her and Aaron’s again wasn’t quite as great.

Silence reigned supreme for a long time.

“Oh,” Claire said again. “Well, I suppose that makes things a little different.”

Desmond nodded.

“This is all I’ve ever wanted,” he said. “I have Penny, and I’m starting a family with her, and you’d have thought that would be enough for me. But I still feel like there’s something missing. An extra branch of the family, if you will. Before, me and Penny and a couple of kids was the one true dream, but now, after the island, it feels wrong without you and Charlie and Aaron being a part of that vision.” He sighed. “Perhaps I’m just selfish, wanting more than I can have.”

“I’d like to be a part of that dream family,” Claire admitted. “If you’d have us, of course.”

Desmond nodded. “You’d be very welcome.”

“Your wife is about to have a baby,” Claire pointed out. “That’s hardly the time to be making serious relationship choices about adding in a third.”

“I know. But nothing about my and Penny’s life at the moment is normal. We live on a boat for crying out loud, and we’re never in the same port more than two weeks together because we’re so worried about her father doing something irretrievable. Whatever we have, it would have to be long-distance and part-time, and I know that’s not something that I can really ask you to settle for. I guess it depends on the amount of commitment that we’re looking for.”

It was strange, because the relationship between herself and Desmond had always been the most casual and easy-going of the quadrangle. Both of them had stronger relationships with Charlie than they had to each other, and Desmond had a stronger relationship with Penny than with either of them again. Desmond and Claire had never had as an intense a relationship as they had had with other people, and they were friends before they were lovers, but had reached the stage where they were more than friends even if they were never destined to be soulmates.

“I just want something. I just want to know that I’m not alone, and that there’s someone out there who cares about me, and whom I care about, who can understand everything that I’ve been through and knows how I feel about Charlie.”

It wasn’t the healthiest way to start a relationship, nor the best place to keep one, but their grief and uncertainty was the thing that was bringing them together, and ultimately they were the only ones who could understand each other’s feelings. There was something there that they needed to share with each other. They needed that catharsis.

Claire buried her face in Desmond’s shoulder as he wrapped his arms around her again. She felt so safe like this, and she never wanted to let him go. As long as she could keep seeing him, and as long as she could be a part of his life and he a part of hers, then perhaps they could keep the memory of Charlie alive between them, and together, they could keep hoping that one day they would all be reunited.

“I think that maybe you need to talk to Penny,” Desmond said eventually. “Maybe things will be easier to define then.”

Claire nodded against his chest. For the first time in a long time, she felt a spark of hope for a brighter future.

X

Claire would have to admit that of all the strange things that had happened to her over the course of the last year and a bit, sitting on a boat drinking tea with the pregnant wife of the man that you were embarking, or rather re-embarking, upon a relationship with, did have to rank up there with the best of them. Penny was glowing in the middle trimester, and Claire would have felt a pang of jealousy that her own pregnancy hadn’t been as easy if she hadn’t known that the calm masked a storm, and that Penny was probably not feeling as lovely as she looked.

"How've you managed?" Claire asked. "Travelling around like you do all the time, without regular access to the doctor. I would be terrified if I was in your position."

"Says the woman who gave birth on a jungle island with no painkillers or medical staff in sight," Penny pointed out. "I think that when these things happen, we all just make the best of them."

Desmond had gone to stock up on provisions for the next leg of his and Penny's journey; once they left Sydney they were going to be heading out towards the pacific islands. Claire would miss them when they left, but she knew that they would return soon enough once the baby had been born and they'd had some time to themselves as a new family. 

"Thanks for seeing me," Claire said. She took a sip of her tea and looked at Penny, looking for any kind of indication that she was unwelcome, or that the other woman wasn't happy with the arrangements that had been made. Claire trusted Desmond, she always had, and she knew that when he kept things from her, it was out of a desire to keep her safe or keep her away from the more unpleasant aspects of life. If he had said that he had told Penny everything and that she was all right with it, then Claire believed him, but at the same time, she wanted to speak to Penny herself, on her own terms. "I just wanted to speak to you about the whole thing without Desmond here."

Penny nodded. "I can understand that. You're so sweet, Claire, and I know that you would never want to be the piggy in the middle. But I think that this will be good for all of us. You and Desmond share something that I can't possibly understand, that experience that you had on the island. I'll never know what it was like out there, and I think that both of you need a person who can remember that and understand it. Desmond has a lot of love to give. He has an enormous capacity for it; it's something that I've always known. He doesn't always show it in the right way, and sometimes he can get a bit carried away, but he's incredibly intense when it comes to things that he feels strongly about. He never does anything by halves, and that applies to relationships as well." She gave a little laugh. "I'm not quite sure how much he's told you about his history before the island, but considering that when he broke up with his first fiancée he joined a monastery and when he broke up with me he joined the army, that probably tells you all you need to know. And then there was the joining a round the world sailing race in the hope not of winning me back, but rather winning my father over to start with." Penny sighed. "Unfortunately for poor Des, my father organised the whole thing specifically to get him out of the picture. What is it with me and men who go overboard?"

"Literally, in Desmond's case," Claire mused. They both laughed, and then fell silent. 

"I've always had faith in Desmond," Penny said eventually. "When we were separated, I always had faith that we would find each other again, and I always had faith that no matter what was going on, or who we might have met in the mean time, we would still be able to have a loving relationship. With Desmond, love's not like cake. With him, the more you spread it around, the more you get; it's not like his feelings for you detract from the ones he holds for me. I think you know that. You were together with him and Charlie on the island, after all."

Claire nodded. Penny had a point. Desmond had an intensity to him that seemed only to grow when he had people to care about. The more people he had to care about, the more he cared; she had definitely seen it when the three of them had started their relationship. The intensity was one of the first things that she had really noticed about him, and it was one of the first things that had subconsciously attracted her to him. Someone with some kind of psychological bent would probably say that she was seeking out models of caregivers to replace the care she'd never received from her father, but she shook that thought aside. Both Charlie and Desmond had certainly taken care of her, but given the disaster areas that they could be when it came to their own feelings sometimes, she felt like she was taking care of them just as much when it came to apocalyptic visions of foreboding. 

She looked down into the bottom of her empty mug. 

"I don't even know what this is, this relationship," she said. "I have no idea how it's going to work."

The relationship she had with Desmond was never going to be as full and intense as the one he had with Penny, and Claire was all right with that. It wasn't just some casual fling, a bit on the side that he came to whenever he was in the vicinity of Sydney. They were committed to each other, but this was not going to be something long-term and full-time. They were a safe harbour for each other, someone that they could each turn to when the worries about Charlie became too much, someone who could understand the pain and the trauma and the harsh realities that they had both seen. 

It came down to the simple fact that neither she nor Desmond were particularly normal. Had they met before the island, then things would have gone very differently, but as they stood, the island had changed them irrevocably. They were no longer normal, if they had ever been truly normal, and therefore the societal conventions of relationships didn't fit what they needed from each other. They needed a comfort that only they could provide each other; Penny would never be able to provide it to Desmond and Claire's mother would never be able to provide it to her, nor would any other romantic partners she might choose to take. 

It was something that they both needed, and Claire was incredibly grateful for it. 

X

It was a couple of days after Bobby had been born that Desmond got a moment in which to call Claire and share the good news. He had been caught up in the wonders of parenthood and looking after Penny, but he knew that Claire was eager for updates and had said that they could call at any time of the day or night if they needed any help or any tips on looking after newborns in not exactly hospital conditions. 

_"Hi Desmond."_

"Hey Claire. I hope I'm not interrupting anything?"

_"No, no, I'm free as a bird. So, what's the news?"_

He could practically hear the giddiness in her voice, could see her bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet in his mind's eye.

"He's here. Two days old and completely perfect."

_"Desmond, that's fantastic! I'm so pleased for you both. How's Penny doing? Was the labour ok? Did you manage to get to a hospital or did she have him on the boat? What's the little guy's name? Oh, I can't wait to meet him."_ She tailed off, and Desmond listened to her laugh on the other end of the line. _"Honestly, listen to me. A couple of years ago I had no interest in babies whatsoever and now I've got them on the brain. Becoming a mum's corrupted me. Seriously though, how's Penny?"_

"Penny's grand. She had him on the boat, but we got the doctor here in time. She's exhausted, but I can't really say I blame her for that."

_"Of course not. I'm so pleased it all went well. Does he have a name yet?"_

"We've called him Robert, after one of my uncles. He'll be Bobby for short."

_"That's a beautiful name. I'm looking forward to seeing him whenever you're ready to travel again. Who knows, maybe he'll grow up into a good playmate for Aaron."_

"That sounds like a good idea."

They continued to talk for a while about Bobby and Penny and more congratulations were passed on when Carole arrived in the room and the phone was handed over. Whether Carole understood the complicated relationship between the three of them or not, she seemed to have given it her blessing, understanding that it was what Claire needed to get her through the uncertainty of life after the island.

At length they hung up, and Desmond came back into the main cabin where Bobby was sleeping against Penny's chest. 

"I don't want to put him down," she said. "I can quite see how Claire became so attached to Aaron once she'd had him."

Desmond just looked on with a feeling of amazement that he had not been able to let go of since the moment his son had come into the world. He couldn't understand how come he could have been so blessed with the wonderful people in his life. 

"Claire sends her love," he said eventually, and Penny smiled. 

Desmond was pleased with how firm a friendship had formed between Penny and Claire. Although he knew both women well and knew that jealousy wasn't really in either of their make-up, he'd been somewhat worried, both from the point of view of suggesting that he and Claire resume what they'd had on the island, and in terms of what each lady would think of the other having only spent a couple of days in each other's company whilst they were in the midst of frantically trying to work out what to do with the Oceanic survivors. The relationship between the three of them was not going to be the same as the relationship between himself, Claire and Charlie - although good and immediate friends, Penny and Claire weren't attracted to each other in the same way that he was attracted to both of them and Charlie. Before there had been a triangle, but now it was more of a V. Either way, they were happy, bonding over tales of Desmond's ability to panic and all the weird and wonderful things that he'd got up to both on the island and before it. 

Now there was Bobby, and Penny and Claire had motherhood to bond over as well. Claire had been reluctant to give Penny tips at first, figuring that since Penny was older than her, she was somehow more knowledgeable even though Penny was going through all this for the first time and Claire had the experience. It was one of Claire's insecurities, the idea that somehow she wasn't good enough. She'd learned everything she knew about motherhood through trial and error, having never expected to have that experience, and now that she was keeping Aaron for good, she was incredibly protective of him. The fact that Bobby had been wanted by both his parents from the moment of his conception was something that she'd felt she couldn't compete with, and that it made her lesser in some way. It had been sad to see the knock to her confidence, especially given how much she had grown into being a mum whilst she'd been on the island. Back within the trappings of normal society, normal society's expectations and judgements were starting to kick in. That was one of the reasons why it was so important for them to stick together. 

Screw convention. They were going to be happy, and that was all that mattered.

X

Claire had just been to check on Aaron when the phone call came; she was about to turn in for the night herself and to see her phone light up and start vibrating made her jump. She hadn't been expecting a call, but as soon as she looked at the number, she knew why they were ringing so late on a Tuesday night. 

"Hi Desmond. What's happening? Did you find anything in London? Did you survive your meeting with Penny's dad?"

_"Yes, but I didn't get all the answers that I needed. We're going to have to go to Los Angeles."_

Claire sat down on the sofa in the darkened living room, thinking about the implications of that. Los Angeles was where Jack and Kate and Hurley were, and it seemed very far away all of a sudden. 

"Why do you have to go there?"

When Desmond had announced his intentions to go to London to try and track down the cause of his latest vision that he didn't think was actually a vision but as a result of something changing something in his past without him noticing, Claire had been worried, because she knew what the relationships between the Widmore family were like and she felt, perhaps erroneously but perhaps not, that Desmond was putting himself in unnecessary danger. She'd argued with him about leaving the safe corner of the world that he and Penny and little Bobby had settled in over the last couple of years, but ultimately, she understood his need to try and find out what the repressed and suddenly resurfaced memory was about. If he had to go to Los Angeles to keep hunting down answers, then she wondered if he was ever going to get to the bottom of it. 

_"I need to talk to Eloise,"_ Desmond continued. 

"The one who helped you when you got stuck in the past?"

_"Yes. She's Daniel's mother, and if anyone can help me make sense of what's going on, then I think it's her. Claire... I think that the people we left on the island have somehow gone back in time, and that Daniel was trying to get a message to me here in the present. I think..."_

He tailed off, but Claire didn't need him to fill in the blanks. She knew what he was thinking. He was afraid that they were going to have to go back to the island. 

She should have known it really, from the moment that she had come home one day with Aaron after nursery to find that Locke was sitting outside her home wanting to talk to her, wanting to bring her back to the island. If there was one thing that Claire knew, it was that the island was shifty and it wanted what it wanted. If Locke said that they all had to go back to the island, then she wouldn't put it past whatever supernatural forces were out there to think of some way to force them to go back.

If Charlie had somehow travelled back in time and was now in danger in the past, then that would be more than enough to get her and Desmond to go back to try and rescue him. Maybe Locke knew that, maybe he didn't. Maybe the island itself knew that. Maybe, hopefully, Charlie knew that. 

_"At any rate,"_ Desmond continued. _"I was wondering if maybe..."_ There was a long sigh and a pause on the other end of the phone, one that was full of anguish even within the silence. _"I was hoping..."_

Another long pause. 

_"Please come with me, Claire,"_ he said finally, his voice soft and pleading, almost begging her. _"Please come with me. If it turns out that we have to go back to the island, if it turns out that this means some terrible bad news for me, then I really don't want to be alone. I need you and Penny to be there. I need you, because you've been to the island and you know what it's like, and you know how much I don't want to go back. I know how much you don't want to go back either. Please, Claire. Please come with us to Los Angeles."_

Claire was silent for a long time. He had not asked her to go back to the island. He didn't want to go back any more than she did, in fact, he probably wanted to go back even less considering how much more time he had spent there and how it had nearly driven him insane. But they both knew how much Charlie meant to the both of them, and they both knew how much they wanted to get him off the island if they could. Desmond had been worried about him ever since he had stopped having the flashes of the future, unsure whether that was a result of his temporal stabilisation or whether it was because Charlie had succeeded in cheating his fate for the last time and was no longer in danger. 

For Claire, it would mean making that fateful flight from Sydney to Los Angeles once more. Despite the memory of what happened the last time she had made that trip, she wanted to go. She wanted to be there for Desmond and if there was any chance of rescuing Charlie, then she had to take it. If there was even the slightest chance of finding out whether or not he was still alive on the island, no matter what time period he might be in, then they had to take it. The not knowing had been eating at her for years now, and she needed some answers. 

"All right," she said. "I'll be there."

They continued to talk for a little while, trying to organise the logistics of how they were going to get there and where they would meet, considering none of them were local to the area. The more Claire thought about it, the more that it seemed like a nice idea. It would be good to go to LA and see Jack, Kate and Hurley again, if nothing else. She really wanted to see how they were doing in reality, rather than from the news reports that she had heard. Kate couldn't leave the state and Hurley was back in Santa Rosa, so if she wanted to see them in person they she was going to have to go out there and see them herself. 

The call ended with their arrangements made, and Claire made her way back up the stairs, looking in on Aaron's room as she passed the slightly open door. Should she take him with her? If, god forbid, anything were to happen on this flight like it had happened on the last one, then she would never be able to forgive herself if she had put Aaron in harm's way like that. On the other hand, she didn't want to leave him alone with her mother whilst she went off galivanting on wild goose chases on the other side of the world looking for strange women with an innate understanding of time travel who might or might not be able to help them. If something happened whilst she was out in Los Angeles, then Aaron would be all alone and might never know what was going on. She couldn't leave him, not now, not after everything that they had been through together. 

On yet another hand, his presence with her on the plane and in Los Angeles might help her to keep her cool in the long run. If she was focused on Aaron and making sure that he was safe, then she would be less likely to freak out. Besides, it wasn't as if she was going to be dragging a kid into an adult-only adventure. Desmond would be bringing Penny and Bobby along with him, after all. 

"Looks like we're going on a trip, Aaron," she said. "Your first real plane ride. You'll have to forgive Mummy if she gets too scared, all right? She's not good on planes to Los Angeles."

She wondered if she could get her mum to come with them. Carole had only left Australia once before, and that was when she had come to Hawaii to be reunited with her daughter, so it would be nice for her to get away. They could frame it as a holiday, and hopefully that would take the fear out of it a little. Also, it probably wouldn't be a good idea to take Aaron with her to whatever meetings she and Desmond needed to go to. 

It was time to start making plans, however fraught those plans might end up being. 


	5. Part Five

Desmond had never been to Los Angeles, and he wasn't entirely sure that he wanted to go back there again. He and Penny had travelled all over the world ever since he had left the island, and there were far more places that he would rather return to than LA. Maybe he was just thinking of it in dark tones because of the news that they had received from Eloise. They were going to have to go back to the island if they stood any chance of getting Charlie and everyone else off it, and they were going to have to move fast if they were going to get there. 

He heard footsteps and a moment later, Claire sat down beside him on the church steps. She put an arm around his shoulders and he leaned into her. Despite her small stature, Claire had such a huge heart that it was easy to feel safe around her, easy to be vulnerable. However unexpected the role had been for her, she was a mother first and foremost, and although Desmond himself did not see her that way, he appreciated the traits that it had given her in this particularly raw time. She stroked his hair away from his face as he gave in to the tears that finally began to flow. He had been through anger, and denial, and now he was just plain miserable. 

"I don't want to go back, Claire," he said. "I really don't want to go back."

"Neither do I. I can't think of anything I want less than that, except leaving Charlie there on his own and knowing that we could have done something to get him back. I'm scared, Desmond. I'm absolutely terrified. But I think we have to go back. We have to do it for Charlie. He risked his life for us, to get me off the island. I need to have faith that I can take a risk to get him off it too."

"What if this time, we can't get away?"

"We will," Claire said firmly. "We will get off that island again and we will come back here and you'll see Penny and Bobby again and I'll see Aaron and Mum again, and everything will be all right and when we get back, we'll have Charlie with us and we can finally have the life together that we deserve, all six of us."

Desmond wasn't sure how long they sat there in the dark outside the church. It was long enough for everyone else to have gone and for Eloise to have put the church to bed, the lights going out around them until only the street lamps were left. He already knew that taking the Ajira flight was inevitable, he'd known it as soon as Eloise had mentioned it, no matter how much he had tried to argue with her that he wasn't going back to that island under any circumstances. He'd known that he would have to go back as soon as the memory of Daniel surfaced in his mind, that little message from the past telling him that something was wrong and that he was duty-bound to fix it. He was the only one whom Daniel could have given the message to, and it was his job to act upon it. 

Claire was right. They owed it to Charlie to try and get him back from the island if they could, and they would not be able to live with themselves if they did not take this opportunity. 

"Des?"

It was Penny's voice, and he looked up to see her getting out of a cab and coming towards them. She didn't say anything as the taxi drove off; she just sat down beside them and put an arm around Desmond, sandwiching him between herself and Claire and shielding him from the world that was just so unfair at the moment. 

"It'll be all right," she said. "Whatever happens, we'll make it all right."

"Will we, though?" Desmond sighed. "This is dangerous."

"We always knew that it would be," Penny said. "We're in this together now, Desmond. You know that. We all know that. There are some risks that we just have to take. If this is what it takes to rescue Charlie then this is what it takes."

"I wish that you could come with us," Desmond muttered. He'd feel a lot better with both Penny and Claire there. 

"I know. I do too. But someone has to stay here. I mean, after all, you might need someone to come and pick you all up from the middle of the ocean again like last time." 

Claire laughed, and Desmond wanted to but didn't have the heart for it. The possibility of being stranded at sea was now all too apparent once more. He really didn't want to think about all the things that could go wrong. Even more things could go wrong this time, if time travel was involved.

"We had better get going," Claire said. "We don't have all that much time before the flight and we need to make sure that we're prepared and that the boys know what's happening."

Penny nodded. "I left them at the hotel with Carole; I said I wasn't going to be gone long. I should probably call her and tell her I've found you and that you haven't been abducted by my father for scientific experiments."

Claire raised an eyebrow. "You know what, I'm not going to ask. I've learned that it's probably safer, especially when it comes to Mr Widmore."

The ride back to the hotel was quiet and sombre, although not awkward. The three of them had spent enough time together in companionable silence over the past couple of years that this was something normal for them. 

As soon as they arrived back at the hotel, Carole could immediately tell that something was wrong. Well, not wrong, per se, but that something serious had happened and was about to happen. She gave them a nod of understanding and left the room, letting them talk to their children alone. Claire took Aaron in her arms, nuzzling his mop of blond hair just as she'd done when he had still been a baby."

"Aaron, Mummy has to go away for a little while," she said. "Your Uncle Des and I are going to go and find your daddy."

Aaron nodded, looking up at her with big blue earnest eyes. "Can I come?"

Claire shook her head. "No, sweetheart. It's only me and your Uncle Des, because the place that we're going to is very special. You can only go there if you've been there before." 

She was lying through her teeth, but it was an effective one. Aaron had no recollection of the island having left when he was three months old, and there was no way of knowing that he had actually been there himself. 

"Desmond and I have already been, so we can go back. But you and Bobby and Auntie Penny haven't been. Grandma and Auntie Penny are going to look after you and Bobby whilst we're away, and we'll be back really soon, and you'll be able to meet your daddy. Be good for Grandma and Auntie Penny."

If there was one thing that Desmond had always admired in Claire whilst he had been a part of her life away from the island, it was the unflinching acceptance that she had given to the idea of Charlie as Aaron's father. It had been a point of contention for the two of them in the past, when Aaron had first been born. Charlie had tried to adopt the father role without Claire's input or her particularly wanting it, and it had led to so much heartache that they had almost never recovered from it. Now, though, she had it in her mind that Charlie was Aaron's father even more than Thomas had ever been. Privately, Desmond had wondered somewhat cynically if Thomas might start sniffing around again having had a change of heart after he found out what had happened to Claire and more specifically how much compensation money she'd been given by Oceanic, but thankfully such a thing had never happened. 

He looked over at Penny, who was gently waking Bobby in order to tell him the same speech as Aaron had just heard. It was definitely happening. They were definitely going back to the island. 

X

Claire and Desmond were holding each other's hands so tightly that Claire was fairly sure that neither of them would have any circulation left in their fingers at the end of it. The plane was shuddering around them, and the memories of the first crash were still so horribly fresh in her mind even three years later.

There was a flash of bright light, and a jolt, and Desmond's hand became detached from hers. She groped for him blindly but then decided that it would be better to just cling onto the seat for dear life. 

Finally, finally, they were on terra firma once more, and Claire opened her eyes.

"Well, that was..."

Her blood ran cold as she looked across at the empty seat next to her. 

"Desmond? Desmond?"

X

According to Miles and Daniel’s theory of time travel that Charlie didn’t exactly understand, they’d always been here in the past and therefore everything they did here had already happened in the future. Something to do with closed time loops and not creating any alternate realities. Up until now, Charlie had never really paid all that much attention to Miles and Daniel’s madcap theories of time travel and had just tried to get on with his life and keep his head down. It was only once he’d heard Horace talking about the construction of the Looking Glass station that he’d really taken any notice and had realised what the far-reaching consequences of it all were.

“In the future, when I turned off the signal jammer in the Looking Glass, the first thing that I realised was that it was a really random code because it had been programmed by a musician. I’m a musician. What if I was the one to program that code in the first place?”

Miles just stared at him for a long time, then nodded. “Yeah, I think you’ve got the hang of it. If you want to go and program some codes in the Looking Glass, you go ahead and program some codes in the Looking Glass.”

“And you’re sure that it won’t create a weird new future timeline?”

Miles sighed. “Charlie, to be brutally honest, I haven’t really been sure of anything for the last three years, but hey, we’ll all still here and time hasn’t imploded, so we must have been doing something right. If you think it’s important, then go for it, and for the love of God please just let me go to bed because it’s two in the morning and you’ve been agonising about this for hours.”

Despite not really understand the fundamentals of time travel, Charlie knew instinctively that this was something that he had to do. Not being involved in the construction of the Looking Glass station might prove fatal to him in the future, and if he changed the future then who knew what might happen to him now in the present? Or would nothing be changed because he had already lived it; that future was his own past? 

He shook his head against the influx of incredibly unhelpful thoughts and made the decision. He was going to go down to the Looking Glass and program that code. If something happened in the intervening years between its construction and his own decoding of it in 2004, then so be it. He could at least feel that he had done his part and done whatever he could to make sure that the timeline remained unaltered. Horace had been surprised at Charlie's offer of assistance, him not being renowned for any great electrical skills, but since spending a few days diving down to the partially built station was no-one's idea of fun, he was grateful for any volunteers that he could get.

Because of all the time spent working on the Looking Glass station, Charlie naturally did not receive a rather important piece of news until two days after the fact. By the time Charlie had finished doing what was needed to be done with the electrics in the Looking Glass, all of the furore and all of the frantic obfuscating that had to be done in order to get Kate, Jack, Hurley and Desmond into the Initiative, and all of the panic that had accompanied Sayid turning up later in the middle of the jungle, had already happened, and Charlie only found out about it when Sawyer came to collect him from the beach in the Dharma van. He could immediately tell that something was up with Sawyer, and he immediately guessed that it was something bad that related to himself and the other Oceanic survivors, but he would never have guessed that the return that Locke had promised them so many years ago had actually happened. 

"Desmond's here?" Despite everything, it was the first thing that Charlie could think of to say. It was the only overarching thought that had crossed his mind in all of the information that Sawyer was spouting to him, including all the new lies that they were going to have to keep straight in their heads. 

"Yeah, Desmond's here. But don't go getting too friendly now, Charlie. Remember that you've never met the guy and this is the first time you've ever clapped eyes on him, because Phil's already suspicious and we can't go giving him any more reason to rat us out to Radzinsky."

Charlie shuddered at the thought. Radzinsky had never fully trusted the Oceanic survivors since they had arrived in the Dharma camp, and whilst the feeling was entirely mutual, Charlie knew that it would not be a good idea to get on Radzinsky's bad side. 

"Ok. Point taken."

The rest of the drive back to the barracks was made in comparative silence as Charlie tried to go over everything in his mind. He wasn't really concerned with the whys and wherefores of how the rest of them had managed to get back to the island; Sawyer had given him an explanation but he hadn't really been listening at the time and it didn't sound like Sawyer himself really knew what was going on. 

If all of the others had come back, then there was the possibility that Claire had also come back, and he really didn't want her to end up suffering the same fate as poor Sayid. He knew that Sawyer would be doing his level best to mitigate the circumstances, but it was only a small comfort.

"What about Claire?" he asked eventually. 

Sawyer shook his head. "No sign of her, or Sun. Mind you, there's no sign of the plane itself or anyone else on it, so we're working on the principle that most of them must have stayed in 2007." He paused, and Charlie wondered what he was thinking. 

"I'm sure that she's safe," he said eventually. "She might have been small and looked like she could blow away in a strong breeze, but she was a tough cookie underneath it all. She'll be fine."

Charlie nodded. It would be a disservice to Claire not to agree with Sawyer's summation, and whilst he did agree with it, he just didn't like the idea of Claire being out there, possibly on her own, back on this bloody island that they'd worked so hard to get her and Aaron off in the first place.

He tried to put that to the back of his mind. He was stuck in the past and there was nothing that he could do about Claire's situation. There was, however, something that he could potentially do about his own, and about Desmond's. 

The thought of seeing Desmond again after such a long time made his stomach twist in knots that were equal parts excited and nervous. They said that absence made the heart grow fonder, and in Charlie's case it certainly had, but he had no idea if Desmond would still feel the same way after three years of probably being with Penny, and if not with Claire. Once again, Charlie found himself being in the position of not really knowing what he could offer Desmond that the other man could not find elsewhere. All he had was himself. Although, that said, Charlie did think that he had grown up somewhat in the intervening years. He'd done a lot of thinking, and come to a lot of conclusions, and he had realised a lot of the mistakes that he had made over the course of his time on the island with Claire and Desmond. He liked to think that he was becoming a better person as a result of his forced exile in the past. They had all grown over their stay with Dharma. Sawyer was almost unrecognisable for the person that he had been before; a stable relationship and a solid foundation for it had been good for him. They'd all made peace with their situation to varying degrees, with some like Sawyer and Juliet taking to it better than others like himself and Jin who had things they truly missed back in the future.

Perhaps there was something that he could offer Desmond after all; a better and more rounded version of the man that he already knew.

The Dharma barracks were pretty chaotic when they finally arrived back, but that was par for the course whenever a batch of new recruits arrived. There were housing arrangements to be sorted out, and tasks to be divvied up, and no-one could ever find anything and Horace was always stretched too thin trying to keep the peace and stop Radzinsky killing anyone. Charlie did something rather uncharacteristic of him and just tried to remain out of notice. Having spent so much of his life attempting to be a performer and to live that life to its fullest, he did have to admit that he enjoyed the limelight, and Claire had commented often enough that he was something of a drama queen. Staying in the shadows wasn't something that came naturally to him, but it was something that he'd found himself having to learn how to do very quickly during the first few days of their stay with Dharma so as to avoid attracting too much attention to them. He wondered idly if any of the initiative members here now would listen to Drive Shaft in thirty years' time and recognise their hit single as a tune that they'd first heard hummed in the seventies.

Sawyer was apprising the others of the latest developments vis-a-vis their returned fellows, but Charlie was more concerned with seeing with his own two eyes who had returned.

“Desmond?” It was all Charlie could do not to run across the quad jumping for joy at seeing Desmond again and he had to drill Sawyer’s words into his head. They didn’t know each other. Desmond was a new recruit who’d come in on the sub with Kate and Jack and Hurley and none of them knew each other and oh God, this was going to be so difficult. He dodged this way and that, hoping to catch Desmond’s eye and hoping that anyone in the vicinity would think that he was just being nosy about the new arrivals. He was known to be an… inquisitive soul, so it wouldn’t be too out of character.

Finally, his not at all surreptitious movement must have caught the corner of Desmond’s eye and he glanced over, his expression lightening into a smile when he saw Charlie. He gave a little nod of acknowledgement, and then turned back to talk with Jack and Kate.

“There’s still no sign of Claire or Sun,” Sawyer was telling Juliet in hushed tones at the motor pool behind him. Charlie tried to think positively about the whole thing. Maybe there was a reason that Claire hadn’t come back in time with the rest of them. After all, if they were going to be stuck in the past with no way of getting back to 2007, or whatever year that it was supposed to be now, then there would be very little chance of Claire reuniting with Aaron. Sun would have had her baby too by now. Maybe the two mothers had remained in the present with the rest of the Ajira passengers to give them the best chance of reuniting with their children. 

He tried to act calm as Horace came over to ask for an update on the Looking Glass station progress and to introduce him officially to the new recruits. Claire was not there, and he had to trust that she was safe or else he would go mad.

Desmond, however, was there, and Charlie knew that he was safe. He could see from the expression on Desmond’s face that he was just as relieved to see Charlie himself safe and sound, and Charlie knew that when it came down to it, nothing had really changed in their relationship despite being apart for so long. Everything was going to be as it should be again, and the moment for them to be able to reunite in private and finally express the joy at seeing each other alive and well could not come soon enough.

X

“So, what happens now?”

They were lying in Charlie’s bed in the house that he shared with Miles and Jin. It had all been so easy to arrange, really, when it came down to it. Since they’d received more new recruits than they’d been expecting in this last batch from the sub, there weren’t enough prefabs ready for them yet, and so the existing Dharma members had been asked if anyone could take in an extra lodger for a couple of days whilst the new houses were constructed. Charlie’s house had volunteered to take Desmond and that was that. No-one else needed to know that Desmond was sleeping in Charlie’s bed rather than on the couch as expected. Not that Charlie really thought that anyone would have a problem with two men in a relationship within the Dharma community, it was practically a hippie commune to start with, but the fact remained that he and Desmond were only supposed to have met that morning and therefore it would have been a bit strange for them to be quite so close quite so soon.

Desmond sighed, tightening his hold on Charlie and burying his face in the pillow.

“I don’t know. Get back to 2007 and get off the island again, I suppose. We all had to come back here for a reason and I don’t know what that is. I don’t suppose we’ll find out till we go back to the future.”

Charlie snorted. “Yeah, if someone can magic up a DeLorean we’ll be good to go.” He stroked Desmond’s hair out of his face. Desmond always had the habit of running his hands through his hair when he was stressed, and it was clear that he’d been very stressed ever since he’d got back to the island. Charlie couldn’t really say that he blamed him; he’d already spent three years here and having finally managed to escape, he’d ended up back here, and not only that, back in time. Maybe Desmond’s presence in the past wasn’t so much of a mystery after all. His mind had done its fair share of time travelling, both forwards and backwards, whilst he’d been on the island the first time. Now it was time for his body to catch up.

Finally, Charlie asked the question that he hadn’t wanted to ask, for fear that he wasn’t going to like the answer. He knew that Jack, Kate, and Hurley hadn’t exactly been in the best of places when they had come back to the island and considering that Sayid had turned up in handcuffs, he probably wasn’t either.

“How’s Claire? Or at least, how was she when you last saw her?”

“She’s doing all right,” Desmond said. “She’s coping. But she misses you, Charlie, more than you can imagine, and it was eating away at her not being able to really tell anyone what happened or who you were and what the two of you shared. It’s like a piece of her was missing. It was missing from me too.”

“Well, you’re here now.”

“That I am.”

“And Claire’s here too, somewhere in the future. Maybe she’s right where we are now.” Charlie turned onto his back, looking over his shoulder at where Claire would have been if she’d been in the bed with them, spooned up behind him and ready to roll over and see to Aaron in his crib if she needed to. Except, of course, Aaron would be three years old now and wouldn’t be sleeping in his crib anymore.

“How’s Aaron?”

“He’s grand. Spitting image of Claire. Blonde hair, huge blue eyes. Claire’s mum and Penny are looking after him.”

Penny. The mention of her brought Charlie back down to earth with a bump. Of course, after getting off the island, the first thing that Desmond would do would be to track down Penny and make up for all the lost time with her.

“You found her in the end, then?”

“Actually, she found us.”

Desmond told the tale of everything that happened after they left the island. Charlie had heard it in bits and pieces in among from Sawyer and the others, but it had always been such a garbled tale, full of inconsistencies and always told at a breakneck pace with a sense of secrecy and urgency. Here in the dark, lying in Desmond’s arms and feeling like he belonged there even as Desmond was talking about Penny all the time, everything was clear. There was no rush. They had all the time in the world.

Well, they didn’t. The morning would come, and they would have to go back to their Dharma day jobs whilst they tried to pretend that they didn’t know each other, and at the same time try to get back to the future and reunite with Claire and work out why Desmond had had to come back to the island in the first place.

But for now, it felt like they had time, and that was half the battle. Their relationship for the most part had always taken place in a time and space apart; it had always been something of a haven for them wherein they didn’t need to worry about the rest of the world. Even when they had been public with their affections, it had still been within their little bubble, uncaring for the rest of the beach.

Charlie wanted to ask what was going to happen in the future, after they all got off the island safe and sound and they’d met up with Claire again and been reunited with Aaron and Penny. He wasn’t used to thinking about the future, especially not so far in the future, in a future that might possibly never happen because if they couldn’t get back to the actual future then there would be no reunions of any kind. He wanted to ask if Aaron would remember him, if Aaron even knew he existed or if Claire had decided not to mention him in case she never saw him again. There were all kinds of things that he wanted to ask. Would Penny be all right with Charlie coming back into Desmond’s life again? She’d accepted Claire easily enough, but what about Charlie? Claire and Desmond’s part of the relationship had never been quite as intense as their own, and neither of them were as intense as Desmond and Penny’s. Charlie knew jealousy; during the course of their relationship he’d had to accept that it was one of his biggest flaws. What he didn’t know was how it affected other people. Especially ones he’d never actually met in person and had only spoken to over a sat phone connection for roughly a minute and a half before all hell broke loose.

He pushed all the questions aside. They weren’t important, looking into the future wasn’t going to help them with the very real challenges that they faced right now. There was something that he wanted to know, though, something that had been bothering him ever since Desmond had left the island.

“Have you had any more flashes?” he asked.

Desmond shook his head. “No. After I went out to the boat and the displacement became debilitating, and after I called Penny and got a constant, they stopped. Faraday could probably tell you the reason for it all. Even though my mind was only going between two fixed points at that time, getting the constant stopped all the flashes to the future as well.”

“I must say I’m pretty relieved to hear that,” Charlie said. “The last thing I needed was for you to turn up and immediately start predicting my doom again.” Desmond smacked his arm playfully. “Ow! There’s no need to hit me just because you can’t start saving my life from numerous weird and wonderful braces with death. Good to know that I won’t be carking it in a freak VW van accident tomorrow, though.”

“Oh, you still might,” Desmond pointed out. “I just won’t be able to foresee it and come and push you out of the way in time.”

Charlie laughed. He'd missed this. He'd missed Desmond. Throughout the three years they'd spent with Dharma, he'd tried to put Desmond and Claire to the back of his mind as much as possible. He had seen what had happened to the freighter, and all he could hope was that by some miracle, they had not been on it at the time. It had been terrible to think that they had perished in that fireball, and so he had simply refused to entertain the notion. When Jin had confirmed that they had not been on the freighter when it had blown and that they'd got away safely on the helicopter, he'd cried with relief. 

That didn't mean that thinking about Desmond and Claire in general hadn't been painful, because he just missed their presence so much. It wasn't that he had been particularly jealous, even though he knew that the Charlie of before would have been wondering what they were getting up to without him out there in the world beyond the island. He found that he was happy for them, and he hoped that wherever they were and whatever they were doing, they were happy. That didn't mean that he didn’t miss them. 

Jin felt the same way about Sun, and once Jin's English had improved to being able to hold a conversation that wasn't just in pidgin, it was something they'd talked about often in the quiet moments when neither of them had anything to do. Of all the survivors that he could have bonded with, Charlie had never thought that Jin would be one of them, but here they were. 

The difference between them was that Jin had never given up hope that Sun would return to the island. He knew instinctively that he was going to see her again, and he never wavered in that belief, no matter how much time had passed. Charlie had not been so sure. After all of the horrible things that had happened on the island, he knew that he wouldn't want to come back, and he could certainly forgive Desmond and Claire for not wanting to come back. After all, they didn't even know that he was still alive. To them, the island had just vanished into thin air.

But now, Desmond was here. Against all the odds, he'd come back, and Charlie felt like pinching himself just to check that he was awake. 

"Pinch me."

"Pardon?"

"Pinch me. I want to check I'm not dreaming and you are actually here."

Desmond reached across and pinched his arm. "Better?"

"Yeah." Charlie rubbed his arm. "You didn't have to do it that hard."

Desmond just laughed. "I'm glad you haven't changed, Charlie."

Charlie huffed. “I’ll have you know that I think I’ve changed quite a bit, thank you very much. And mostly for the better.”

“Modest as always.” Desmond leaned in closer and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “Although yes, I think I’d agree with you. Of course, we’ve only been reunited for half a day so perhaps it’s a bit early to tell.”

In the dim light, Charlie could nonetheless see that Desmond was smiling. There was a fondness in his eyes that Charlie had missed so much, and above everything else, there was an overwhelming sense of relief. They’d found each other, and however much they may have grown as individuals, they were still the same people that they were before. Time and distance had not changed either of their feelings.

“Do you think we’re going to get back?” he asked eventually.

Desmond nodded.

“Yes.” The firm conviction sealed the deal for Charlie. After so much else that had happened against the odds, this was something that they would force into being by sheer willpower if nothing else.

X

"They'll be ok."

Claire glanced over at Sun as she came and sat down beside her, and managed a small smile. Ever since she had arrived back on the island to find that Sun was the only member of the original Oceanic survivors who hadn't vanished, the two of them had stuck together like glue, determined to find the truth of what was going on and even more determined to reunite with those whom they had come to the island to find. Sun's steadfast belief that everything was going to be all right, despite the fact that half of their party were stuck thirty years in the past, was a very welcome crutch for Claire to lean on, and it had given her the optimism she needed to see it through. They'd get back from the past, somehow, no matter what. There had to be a way. Desmond might not have enjoyed his time travelling exploits before, but there was no denying that he had the experience. If anyone was going to be determined to get them back to the present, then it was him.

She hoped that wherever he was out there, he had found Charlie. She hoped that Charlie was still alive. When she had gone to the abandoned Dharma buildings with Frank and Sun and they had seen the enrolment photos of the various new members of the Dharma Initiative, it had warmed her heart to see Charlie's picture there in 1974, grinning at the camera. He was all right; Sawyer and Miles and Juliet and Jin, everyone was all right. Well. They had been all right then. Three years had since passed, and there was no guarantee.

"I really hope so." Claire sighed. "It's ironic, really. I came back here to find someone I lost, and in the process I just ended up losing someone else I care about. I know that this was the only way, but I can't help feeling bitter about it. The whole reason that Desmond and I came back here together was so that we could support each other. Neither of us wanted to come back if we could help it, but we both wanted to come and fetch Charlie if we could. We were supposed to be each other's helpmate for this trip, but now we're split up again and we can't do anything to help each other."

"You came for each other. I think that has to account for something." Sun smiled. "I can't really hope to understand how the relationship between the three of you, and Penny, works, but even though it was short-lived on the island, we all saw enough to know that whatever it was, it was something genuine. It made you stronger, all three of you, and without it, you wouldn't have had the strength to do what you have done, any of you. You and Desmond wouldn't have come back to the island. Charlie wouldn't have gone down to the Looking Glass station and allowed us to all get off the island in the first place. I don't think that you can regret any of it."

"I don't. Not at all. It's been strange these past couple of years, continuing without Charlie, but he's always been there at the forefront of our minds. The absent link that keeps us together. He's the key. Even without him being present, he's still the thing that keeps us all together."

So near, and yet so far away from each other. Claire wondered where Charlie was in the past now. Would he still be in the abandoned Dharma village, at that point thriving and full of life in its heyday? As little as she wanted to time travel, she would have liked to have seen what the Initiative were like whilst they had been here in the height of their time.

Maybe he was out here on the beach, standing in the exact same spot that she was standing in now. She closed her eyes, imagining him standing there beside her, Desmond on his other side. All of them together, separated not by location but by years.

She knew that she couldn’t keep sitting out here by the sea forever. Despite everything being in a strange kind of limbo whilst they waited for the others to get back from the past, that didn’t mean that everything was plain sailing. Ben was still with them, and Claire still didn’t entirely trust him despite not having tried to kill any of them for a week now. Ilana was always on edge and that in turn put Claire on edge. Maybe if Ilana put down the rifle for a while the atmosphere would seem less tense. It felt like they ought to be doing something, but Claire knew that there was nothing they could do to help the people in the past, and that antagonising the person who wasn’t Locke wasn’t going to be a good idea. It was a stifling stalemate, but one that could not be helped.

“Claire!”

Claire opened her eyes on hearing Sun’s excited shout, and when she saw what had caught her friend’s attention, she scrambled to her feet as quickly as she possibly could. The others were coming across the beach towards them, well, some of them at least. Jack and Kate and Desmond and Hurley and…

“Charlie!”

Claire raced across the beach, throwing herself into Charlie’s arms with such abandon that he nearly fell over under the force of it.

“Oh Charlie, you’re all right, you’re alive, I can’t believe it! I’ve missed you so much.”

Charlie just threw his arms around her, his grip tight and fierce and so very welcome after all those years apart from him and these past frantic few days of not knowing where he was or when he was or if he had any chance of getting back to the present.

“I missed you too, Claire. You and Aaron both. How is he? Is he all right?”

“He’s fine, he’s still in Sydney with my mum. I can’t wait for you to meet him again, he’s got so big now, you won’t recognise the little turniphead he was three years ago.”

“Does he…” Charlie tailed off. “He won’t know me, Claire. He won’t remember me.”

“Of course he won’t remember you, he was only two months old when we left the island. But he does know who you are, silly. Do you really think that I wouldn’t tell him about the man who was so important during the first couple of months of his life? I told him that Desmond and I were coming back to find you. He’ll be most disappointed if we come back without you, you know, so no matter what, I’m sticking to you like glue until we get out of here so that I can make sure nothing happens to you.”

“Well, since I don’t have Desmond as my personal future insurer anymore, that’s probably a good thing.”

Claire looked over his shoulder to see Desmond a little way from them with Jack, looking on with a smile. It was the first genuinely happy smile that she’d seen on Desmond since before Los Angeles, and she waved him over to get in on the action, welcoming him into the group hug. They were finally back together again, all three of them, the way it was always meant to be. Now all they had to do was get home to Penny and the boys, and everything would be absolutely perfect.

“So,” Charlie began, giving voice to Claire’s exact thoughts. “Anyone got any idea how we get off this bloody island?”


	6. Epilogue

**Three Years Later**

“They should be here already!”

“Charlie, please calm down. It will take them less than thirty seconds to get here.”

“But we told them what was happening five minutes ago!”

“Charlie, they literally live next door to us, they will be here.”

Charlie finally stopped his frantic pacing up and down the bedroom and despite the contraction pains, Claire couldn’t help but give a giggling snort at his behaviour.

“How can you be so calm?” Charlie asked. “Why am I the one who’s panicking here? I’m not the one having the baby!”

“You do realise that the last time I gave birth, I was in the middle of a jungle with no pain relief, no qualified medical staff and nothing remotely sanitary? This is a doddle in comparison.” The midwife was on her way, and Desmond and Penny would be coming over to help out and keep Aaron occupied whilst Claire got on with having his baby brother or sister and Charlie got on with providing her with body parts for her to crush through the contractions.

Despite the terrifying circumstances of Aaron’s birth, Claire had elected not to go to the hospital to have his sibling. Ever since the accident, she’d spent more than enough time in hospitals to last her a lifetime, and she was working on the principle that if she could give birth on the island with only Kate to help her, then she could give birth at home with a large support network in place.

There was the sound of a key in the front door lock and then Penny’s voice calling up to them. Charlie gave visible sigh of relief, and a moment later, Penny popped her head around the door.

“How are you getting on?”

Claire nodded. “All right. They’re coming every four minutes now, so I hope the midwife arrives soon. Aaron really didn’t hang about once he got going and they always say that labour gets quicker with the second baby.”

Penny smiled. "Well, I'll leave you alone to get on with it. If you need anything, just give us a yell. Or send Charlie, but right now it looks like he might faint before he could get down the stairs."

"Hey!"

Penny ignored his protests. "Desmond will probably come up and say hi in a minute, unless you'd rather that I kept him out of the way."

"Considering Desmond's propensity for panicking, I'm inclined to keep him away. I don't need two of them freaking out around me."

"Hey!" Charlie protested. "I'm not freaking out!"

Penny just raised an eyebrow. Two years of living next door to Charlie had given her a pretty good feel for what he was like in a crisis, and as much as she loved him, she really didn't think that he had a leg to stand on here. 

"Well, maybe a bit. But it's scary stuff!"

"Charlie, honestly. How many times do I have to tell you that this is nothing compared to Aaron? It's a walk in the park."

"I gave birth on a boat," Penny pointed out. "We've got this covered, Charlie, we know what we're about."

For a moment, Claire considered that perhaps Penny, with her good old-fashioned common sense and inability to be ruffled by anything, would have been a better choice for a birth partner than Charlie, but when it came down to it, Charlie made her feel at ease. If Charlie was there panicking over every little thing, then it meant that Claire herself didn't have to do any panicking. It came right back to those first few days on the island, when she had first met Charlie. In the midst of all the strangeness that was occurring and in the middle of her lost memories, ones that she had never fully regained, Charlie had made her feel safe, and that was something that she needed now that she was going to bring their child into the world. 

Penny left them to it, and Claire had to giggle at the conversation that had just happened, breaking off sharply when another contraction pulled through her abdomen. 

"Get over here and make yourself useful," she muttered through gritted teeth, holding out a hand for him. Charlie raced across and grabbed it, squeezing tightly, and Claire just looked at him. "I'm the one meant to be squeezing you, you know."

"Oh, yes. Sorry." He loosened his grip a little and looked round the room whilst he counted in his head. Once the contraction was over, he looked back at Claire. 

"Have we got everything? Have we got enough towels? Do you need anything else? What about ice? In all the TV shows they always go on about women in labour eating ice chips. Is that really a thing? Do you want some ice chips?"

"Charlie, I'm fine. I've got everything I need right here, honestly." She patted his hand where it held hers, and Charlie just gazed at her. 

"You're remarkable, you know that? If I'd had to have Aaron on an island in the middle of nowhere, the last thing that I'd want would be to go through all that again."

"It's worth it," Claire said. "At the end of it, we're getting a baby, and that's what I want. We're expanding our family."

Their family. Some people would say that it was strange to think of their dynamic little unit as a family, but it was the very best way to describe them. They were four adults who loved each other, all in very different ways, but it was still love. Desmond and Penny would always gravitate towards each other in the first instance, just as Charlie and Claire would gravitate towards each other. In that sense, they were soulmates, but they were bonded in other ways as well. Charlie and Desmond shared something deep that Penny and Claire couldn't hope to understand, and the two ladies had a friendship that transcended normal boundaries. The island had brought them all together, and now that they were all here, all in one piece, it wasn't going to take anything away from them again. 

Desmond came in a few moments later. He didn't stay long, just reiterating Penny's instructions to call if she needed anything.

"I won't hang around," he said. "Pen'll tell you I was a wreck whilst she was giving birth. Probably because I spent most of it running around trying to find the doctor, but that's beside the point. You'll do great, Claire. If there's one thing you've always been good at, it's being a mum."

"I know. It's so strange." 

Desmond came over and kissed her cheek. "Hang in there, sweetheart. It'll all be all right."

Claire knew that it would. She wasn't scared. There were no misgivings about her ability as a mother now. She wasn't afraid of the pain. She wasn't afraid that this baby would somehow think that it was unwanted. With Aaron, everything had been one terrifying train of thought after another, not only the fraught circumstances of his birth but also the idea of having to be his mother when she was so awfully unprepared. Now, she was prepared, and she couldn't wait to meet her second child. 

A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door, and then Penny was showing the midwife into the room. It was almost time. Things were getting real. 

X

Desmond could tell that Aaron knew something was going on from the way that he kept glancing over at the living room door. Penny had closed it and they had the TV on loudly to drown out any sounds of Claire screaming through labour pains that might have come down the stairs, but so far, there had been nothing alarming. 

Now six years old, Aaron was fully aware of the concept of his baby brother or sister being in his mum's tummy and now needing to get out by any means necessary. Whilst he wasn't entirely clued up on exactly what that entailed, he knew that it was happening right now, and that it was something that he couldn't be around for. 

"It won't be long now, Aaron," Penny said. "Then you'll get to meet your new brother or sister."

"Are you hoping for a brother or a sister?" Desmond asked. 

"A sister," Aaron said firmly. "I already have a brother." He looked over at Bobby and grinned.

Desmond smiled. Although not related by blood, the two boys were thick as thieves and certainly as close as siblings. Growing up next door to each other had been good for them - always close, but not under each other's feet all the time. 

When they had finally got off the island and reunited with Penny, Carole and the boys back in Sydney, there had been a lot of discussion about precisely how the relationship was going to work out for the rest of the foreseeable future. Now that there were no more dangers from the island hanging over them, it seemed that they ought to put some more concrete foundations in place for a healthy and happy polyamorous relationship. Before, things had always been a little fluid and undefined - all four of them had never been in the same place until now, for a start - and with the dangers of their situation hanging over them all the time, they had lived in the moment rather than thinking past the end of the next week. 

It had been Carole's idea for them to live next door to each other. With Penny's father out of the picture, there was nothing to stop her and Desmond from making their home on permanent dry land, and having travelled so extensively during the first three years of their marriage, there was nothing holding them to any particular place. Staying in Sydney seemed to be the logical choice. Claire had family and roots there and it was where Aaron had grown up. Charlie also had family there, and nothing really worth going back to the UK for. Although it was Charlie who had been the catalyst of the relationship, it was Claire who had always provided the heart, and who had got them going in the first place. It made sense for her to provide an anchor for them now. 

Even above the sound of the TV, Desmond could still hear Claire swearing up a blue streak in the bedroom, and he looked over at Penny. 

"Do you think we should do something?" he asked. 

Penny shook her head with a smile. "Trust me, I think that any offers of help now will result in you getting a shoe thrown at your head, or something similar. Just let her get on with it. She's in good hands."

"Charlie's worse than I am."

"I'd say that you're about equal, and I was talking about the midwife."

"Yes. Right."

They continued to watch the cartoons on the TV, glancing over at the door with Aaron and Bobby every so often, waiting for someone to bring them some news. 

"Auntie Penny, does it hurt when the baby comes out?" Aaron whispered. 

"Yes. But as soon as she holds the baby, your mum won't feel the pain anymore, I promise. She'll be too happy to feel it."

Desmond didn't say anything. This was such a big moment in all of their lives, welcoming another baby into the fold. They did always say that it took a village, and with parents and godparents on hand and a doting grandmother and great-aunt just around the corner, Aaron's sibling was going to have just as much of a support network as Aaron himself had had when he had spent his first couple of months surrounded by his extended family of island aunties and uncles. 

The sharp cry of a newborn cut through the house, and Aaron and Bobby grinned at each other. Desmond let out a long breath that he didn't even really realise that he'd been holding. 

The wait for news was agonising, but Penny's amused look and calm smile kept Desmond sitting on the sofa rather than rushing upstairs to see how mother, father and baby were doing. He hadn't heard any loud thuds, so presumably Charlie had managed not to faint. 

At last, the midwife came into the room. 

"The baby's here, safe and sound," she said. "A very healthy, very vocal little girl, weighing in at seven pounds ten. You're welcome to go up whenever you're ready."

"Do you want to meet your sister, Aaron?" Penny asked. He jumped up eagerly and Bobby followed suit, and in the end the four of them went upstairs in a convoy. Not wanting to crowd Claire, Penny waited outside with Bobby whilst Desmond took Aaron into the bedroom. 

Claire was glowing, the very picture of new motherhood, flushed with exertion and her hair damp and sweat-matted around her face, and all the more beautiful for it. She was beaming with joy as her daughter nursed. Charlie was grinning from ear to ear, and as Desmond entered, he ran over and threw his arms around him. 

"I'm a dad!" he exclaimed. Although Aaron had always called Charlie Daddy ever since he had come back from the island, and even though Claire had always introduced Charlie as Aaron's father, Charlie had always remained acutely aware of the few weeks after Aaron's birth, when he had forced his co-parenting onto Claire when she had been trying to prove her own worth as a mother, and of the dark few days when he had taken Aaron. Knowing that Claire had made the choice to have a baby with him and had wanted him to be involved from the beginning was a huge thing for him.

"Does she have a name yet?" Desmond asked. 

Charlie nodded. "Yes. We've always known what we were going to call her, but if it's all right with you, we'll wait till everyone's here before we announce it." 

As soon as Claire had gone into labour, they'd started ringing around all the old gang, and they'd sent a message to Hurley as well. Everyone was on their way to meet the latest addition to the island family. 

"Of course." Desmond gave Charlie another hug and a kiss. "I'm so happy for you, brother."

Aaron had got onto the bed with Claire and was watching with a furrowed brow as she transferred his sister to her other breast.

"She looks kind of squashed," he said. "And wrinkly, like she's been in the bath for too long."

"So did you when you were little," Claire pointed out. "All babies look a bit squashed to start with. She'll grow out of it."

Desmond stayed with them for a little while longer, soaking up the love in the room. He had never been so happy to be a part of their unconventional little family. 

X

To ease the stress on Charlie and Claire, the island gang reunion took place at Desmond and Penny's house. Miles and Richard were the first to arrive, eager to pick up parenting tips having just been approved for adoption themselves. Sawyer and Kate came together; Charlie had expected them to get back together again after the island, but they'd just stayed friends and they were all the stronger for it. Frank had not quite given up flying despite his many threats to do so whilst they had been recovering at the safehouse in Guam. 

It was the first time that all of the survivors had been together in the same room since they had left Guam. They'd all visited each other over the course of the intervening years, but they had never yet all been together again like it had been in old times. For a while, Charlie felt like they were back in the Dharma years, with Miles and Sawyer sniping at each other and Charlie and Jin and Juliet trying to keep the peace. It was painful to think of Juliet and Jin, but it was fitting in a way that they should be remembering those they had lost at the same time as they were welcoming a new face into the fold. No matter how much their lives had been tainted by all the death that they had seen, there were new beginnings and there was new hope. Just as Aaron's birth had given the Oceanic survivors hope whilst they had been in the island, so his sister's birth had given the final survivors hope for the rest of their lives. Despite all the loss and all the trauma, they were all still here. They had all made it, and now they had the rest of their lives in which to recover and rebuild. 

Finally, Hurley arrived, bringing best wishes from Rose, Bernard, and Ben, and once everyone was gathered in the front room and had sufficiently made fuss of the baby, dozing happily in Charlie's arms, it was time for official introductions to be made. 

"Her name is Jacqueline," Claire announced. "But we're going to call her Linnie for short."

They'd decided on the name a long time ago. Claire had wanted to honour Jack, their fallen leader who had done so much for them, and the brother she'd never really had the chance to get to know, but she wanted their daughter to have her own name too, and not feel pressured to live up to her heroic namesake all the time. Charlie had loved her idea for a compromise, and so little Linnie was here with them now, and charming the pants off everyone in the room. 

Desmond proposed a toast, and everyone echoed it. Charlie couldn't describe his feelings. He was here as part of a loving family, when he had reached the stage of thinking that he might never get the chance to have a family of his own at all. Sure, it wasn't the most conventional of families, but that was what made it so very special. He had Claire and Aaron and now Linnie as well, and he also had Desmond and Penny and Bobby. It was a big, sprawling extended family that would only get bigger as time went on, and Charlie was more than happy about that. He was so overjoyed with the turn that his life had taken over the last few years that he wanted everyone to be a part of it and to share in that joy. Seeing everyone gathered together again was great. 

The gathering continued, and Linnie was passed from person to person, everyone wanting to get in on the action and have a cuddle. Eventually though, she began to grizzle a little, and Charlie took her out to the deck to calm her down in the cool evening air, away from all the new people wanting to fuss over her. 

"Hey there."

It was Desmond who'd followed him out, sitting on the wicker sofa beside him. 

"I think she just got a bit overwhelmed in there," Charlie said, and he looked down at Linnie, who was dozing off again. "She seems to be all right though. I still can't quite get over the fact that she's really mine, and she's really here."

"You did it, Charlie," Desmond said. "You ought to take pride in that fact."

"I know. But come on, how did you feel when Bobby was first born? It must have been a similar kind of wonder. I felt like this when Aaron was born and I wasn't even really his dad at that point."

"It is amazing," Desmond agreed. "I don't think that there's anything like it."

The two men sat in silence for a while. 

"You know, sometimes I think about us and about everything that happened on the island, and I wonder what would have happened if we hadn't bitten the bullet and gone for it, and started this thing," Charlie said eventually. "How would things have gone differently, you know. Obviously, we wouldn't have this relationship, but other than that, would everything still be the same? Would you have reunited with Penny? Would I even still be here or would something have happened that neither of us could have prevented? Would Claire and I still be together? Would Linnie even exist?"

Desmond squeezed his shoulder. "There's no use in worrying over things like that," he said. "It's all in the past, and these are the paths we've taken and the future that we've ended up in. There's no use in wondering what if, especially if the what-ifs aren't as good as the actual life that we have now."

"Yeah, I guess you're right. No use in torturing ourselves. I suppose we should really be thinking about the future, rather than the past. Don't suppose that you could help on that score?"

Charlie knew that Desmond knew that he was teasing, but all the same, he did enjoy the little eye roll that Desmond gave.

"You're going to be badgering me about this for the rest of time, aren't you?" he groused. 

"You know me, Desmond. Of course I am."

"It's a good job that Sawyer never learned about the flashes, or else I'd be dealing with a lifetime's worth of nicknames to do with time travel."

"I'm sure that I could think up some good ones if you feel like you're really missing out on them."

"That won't be necessary, thank you. No, I have no idea what the future's going to hold any more than you do, but I've got a good feeling about it. Everything's in a good place now. We're all in a good place. There's no island hanging over us, even though it's the one thing that brought us together and that will keep us together, it's not going to cause us any more problems. We can move on from it."

Charlie nodded. "In a way, I'm glad that you crashed our plane. Otherwise, we would never have met, and none of this would have happened. In spite of all the bad things that happened on the island, some good did come of it."

"I think a lot of good came of it. We all found the things that we needed, in the end." Desmond leaned in and pressed a soft kiss to Charlie's forehead. "Things that perhaps we didn't know we needed."

"So this is where you two have got to. Well. You three."

Claire had come out onto the deck behind them; Charlie hadn't heard her arrive so he didn't know how long she might have been there, but when he turned to her, she was smiling fondly. She liked seeing the two of them together, she always had. Even back on the beach, there was something about the relationship between Desmond and Charlie that had seemed pre-destined and passionate, and something to take strength from. Claire had often taken strength from it then, and she was doing so again now. 

Charlie patted the space on the loveseat next to him and Claire squeezed in, taking Linnie from him and cradling her against her chest as she slept. Like Aaron, Linnie was spending a lot of time in her parents' arms instead of in a crib, but they wouldn't have it any other way. Aaron had turned out just fine for attachment parenting, and Linnie was going to be just fine too. 

"This brings back memories," Claire said. "You two, me, and a baby under the stars."

"Those were some good memories," Desmond agreed. 

"Maybe we'll get to make some more," Charlie said. "Ones that don't have manic raging boars or crazy island inhabitants or other people trying to kill us all."

Claire laughed. "Yeah, I'm up for that."

They kept looking at the stars for a long time, even though Charlie knew that they should probably get back to the party. There was no rush. Everyone knew that the three of them would need some time alone at some point, and it was nice to make these precious memories together, to make Linnie's first memories of her family.

With Desmond on one side and Claire on the other, Charlie felt a happiness that he didn't think he'd ever experienced before the Oceanic flight. As long as he had Claire and Desmond, he could do anything. Together, they could do anything. 

Everything was going to be wonderful. 


End file.
